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HISTORY 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 



BY JACOB ABBOTT. 



Wltb Hnsrab(tifl0. 



NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

82 CLIFF STREET. 




ZJFzsi 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and forty-eight, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

l 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 



PREFACE. 



The history of the life of every individual 
who has, for any reason, attracted extensively 
the attention of mankind, has been written in 
a great variety of ways by a multitude of au- 
thors, and persons sometimes wonder why we 
should have so many different accounts of the 
same thing. The reason is, that each one of 
these accounts is intended for a different set of 
readers, who read with ideas and purposes wide- 
ly dissimilar from each other. Among the 
twenty millions of people in the United States, 
there are perhaps two millions, between the ages 
of fifteen and twenty-five, who wish to become 
acquainted, in general, with the leading events 
in the history of the Old World, and of ancient 
times, but who, coming upon the stage in this 
land and at this period, have ideas and concep- 
tions so widely different from those of other na- 
tions and of other times, that a mere republica- 



viii Preface. 

tion of existing accounts is not what they re- 
quire. The story must be told expressly for 
them. The things that are to be explained, 
the points that are to be brought out, the com- 
parative degree of prominence to be given to 
the various particulars, will all be different, on 
account of the difference in the situation, the 
ideas, and the objects of these new readers, 
compared with those of the various other classes 
of readers which former authors have had in 
view. It is for this reason, and with this view, 
that the present series of historical narratives is 
presented to the public. The author, having 
had some opportunity to become acquainted 
with the position, the ideas, and the intellect- 
ual wants of those whom he addresses, presents 
the result of his labors to them, with the hope 
that it may be found successful in accomplish- 
ing its design. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH .' 13 

II. BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN 36 

III. THE REACTION 57 

IV. CROSSING THE HELLESPONT 78 

V. CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR 103 

VI. DEFEAT OF DARIUS 128 

VII. THE SIEGE OF TYRE 147 

VIII. ALEXANDER IN EGYPT 169 

IX. THE GREAT VICTORY.,. 189 

X. THE DEATH OF DARIUS 213 

XI. DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER 234 

XII. ALEXANDER'S END 251 



ENGRAVINGS 



Page 

map. expedition of Alexander Frontispiece. 

ALEXANDER AND BUCEPHALUS 27 

MAP OF MACEDON AND GREECE 48 

MAP OF MACEDON AND GREECE 58 

MAP OF THE PLAIN OF TROY... 88 

PARIS AND HELEN 94 

ACHILLES 97 

MAP OF THE GRANICUS 104 

THE BATHING IN THE RIVER CYDNUS 124 

MAP OF THE PLAIN OF ISSUS 134 

THE SIEGE OF TYRE 157 

THE FOCUS 185 

THE CALTROP 197 

ALEXANDER AT THE PASS OF SUSA 211 

PROPOSED IMPROVEMENT OF MOUNT ATHOS 261 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Chapter I. 
His Childhood and Youth. 

The briefness of Alexander's career. His brilliant exploits. 

\ LEXANDER THE GREAT died when 
-*"*- he was quite young. He was but thirty- 
two years of age when he ended his career, and 
as he was about twenty when he commenced 
it, it was only for a period of twelve years that 
he was actually engaged in performing the work 
of his life. Napoleon was nearly three times as 
long on the great field of human action. 

Notwithstanding the briefness of Alexander's 
career, he ran through, during that short peri- 
od, a very brilliant series of exploits, which 
were so bold, so romantic, and which led him. 
into such adventures in scenes of the greatest 
magnificence and splendor,- that all the world 
looked on with astonishment then, and mankind 
have continued to read the story since, from 
age to age, with the greatest interest and at- 
tention. 



14 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 356. 

Character of Alexander. Mental and physical qualities. 

The secret of Alexander's success was his 
character. He possessed a certain combination 
of mental and personal attractions, which in ev- 
ery age gives to those who exhibit it a mysteri- 
ous and almost unbounded ascendency over all 
within their influence. Alexander was charac- 
terized by these qualities in a very remarkable 
degree. He was finely formed in person, and 
very prepossessing in his manners. He was 
active, athletic, and full of ardor and enthusi- 
asm in all that he did. At the same time, he 
was calm, collected, and considerate in emer- 
gencies requiring caution, and thoughtful and 
far-seeing in respect to the bearings and conse- 
quences of his acts. He formed strong attach- 
ments, was grateful for kindnesses shown to 
him, considerate in respect to the feelings of all 
who were connected with him in any way, faith- 
ful to his friends, and generous toward his foes. 
In a word, he had a noble character, though he 
devoted its energies unfortunately to conquest 
and war. He lived, in fact, in an age when 
great personal and mental powers had scarcely 
any other field for their exercise than this. Ho 
entered upon his career with great ardor, and 
the position in which he was placed gave him thri 
opportunity to act in it with prodigious eflV- 



B.C. 356.] Childhood and Youth. 15 

Character of the Asiatic and European civilization. 

There were several circumstances combined, 
in the situation in which Alexander was placed, 
to afford him a great opportunity for the exer- 
cise of his vast powers. His native country 
was on the confines of Europe and Asia. Now 
Europe and Asia were, in those days, as now, 
marked and distinguished by two vast masses 
of social and civilized life, widely dissimilar from 
each other. The Asiatic side was occupied by 
the Persians, the Medes, and the Assyrians. 
The European side by the Greeks and Romans. 
They were separated from each other by the 
waters of the Hellespont, the iEgean Sea, and 
the Mediterranean, as will be seen by the map. 
These waters constituted a sort of natural bar- 
rier, which kept the two races apart. The 
races formed, accordingly, two vast organiza- 
tions, distinct and widely different from each 
other, and of course rivals and enemies. 

It is hard to say whether the Asiatic or Eu- 
ropean civilization was the highest. The two 
were so different that it is difficult to compare 
them. On the Asiatic side there was wealth, 
luxury, and splendor ; on the European, ener- 
gy, genius, and force. On the one hand were 
vast cities, splendid palaces, and gardens which 
were the wonder of the world: on the other, 



16 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 356. 

_ 

Composition of Asiatic and European armies. 

strong citadels, military roads and bridges, and 
compact and well-defended towns. - The Per- 
sians had enormous armies, perfectly provided 
for, with beautiful tents, horses elegantly ca- 
parisoned, arms and munitions of war of the 
finest workmanship, and officers magnificently 
dressed, and accustomed to a life of luxriry and 
splendor. The Greeks and ^Romans, on the 
other hand, prided themselves on their compact 
bodies of troops, inured io hardship and thor- 
oughly disciplined. Their officers gloried not 
in luxury and parade, but in the courage, the 
steadiness, and implicit obedience of their troops, 
and in their own science, skill, and powers of 
military calculation. Thus there was a great 
difference in the whole system of social and mil- 
itary organization in these two quarters of the 
globe. 

Now Alexander was born the heir to the 
throne of one of the Grecian kingdoms. He 
possessed, in a very remarkable degree, the ener- 
gy, and enterprise, and military skill so charac- 
teristic of the Greeks and Romans. He organ- 
ized armies, crossed the boundary between Eu- 
rope and Asia, and spent the twelve years of 
his career in a most triumphant military incur- 
sion into the verv center and seat of Asiatic 



B.C. 356.] Childhood axd Youth. 17 

King Philip. Extent of Macedon. Olympian 

power, destroying the Asiatic armies, conquer- 
ing the most splendid cities, defeating or taking 
captive the kings, and princes, and generals 
that opposed his progress. The whole world 
looked on with wonder to see such a course of 
conquest, pursued so successfully by so young 
a man, and with so small an army, gaining 
continual victories, as it did, over such vast 
numbers of foes, and making conquests of such 
accumulated treasures of wealth and splendor. 
The name of Alexander's father was Philip. 
The kingdom over which he reigned was called 
Macedon. Macedon was in the northern part 
of Greece. It was a kingdom about twice as 
large as the State of Massachusetts, and one 
third as large as the State of New York. The 
name of Alexander's mother was Olympias. 
She was the daughter of the King of Epirus, 
which was a kingdom somewhat smaller than 
Macedon, and lying westward of it. Both 
Macedon and Epirus will be found upon the 
map at the commencement of this volume. 
Olympias was a woman of very strong and de- 
termined character. Alexander seemed to in- 
herit her energy, though in his case it was com- 
bined with other qualities of a more attractive 
character, which his mother did not possess. 
B 



18 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 356. 

The young prince Alexander. Ancient mode of warfare. 

He was, of course, as the young prince, a very 
important personage in his father's court. Ev- 
ery one knew that at his father's death he would 
become King of Macedon, and he was conse- 
quently the object of a great deal of care and 
attention. As he gradually advanced in the 
years of his boyhood, it was observed by all who 
knew him that he was endued with extraor- 
dinary qualities of mind and of character, which 
seemed to indicate, at a very early age, his fu- 
ture greatness. 

Although he was a prince, he was not brought 
up in habits of luxury and effeminacy. This 
would have been contrary to all the ideas which 
were entertained by the Greeks in those days. 
They had then no fire-arms, so that in battle 
the combatants could not stand quietly, as they 
can now, at a distance from the enemy, coolly 
discharging musketry or cannon. In ancient 
battles the soldiers rushed toward each other, 
and fought hand to hand, in close combat, with 
swords, or spears, or other weapons requiring 
great personal strength, so that headlong brav- 
ery and muscular force were the qualities which 
generally carried the day. 

The duties of officers, too, on the field of bat- 
tle, were very different then from what they are 



B.C. 356.] Childhood and Youth. 19 

Ancient and modern military officers. Alexander's nurse. 

now. An officer now must be calm, collected, 
and quiet. His business is to plan, to calculate, 
to direct, and arrange. He has to do this some- 
times, it is true, in circumstances of the most 
imminent danger, so that he must be a man 
of great self-possession and of undaunted cour- 
age. But there is very little occasion for him 
to exert any great physical force. 

In ancient times, however, the great busi- 
ness of the officers, certainly in all the subordi- 
nate grades, was to lead on the men, and set 
them an example by performing themselves 
deeds in which their own great personal prow- 
ess was displayed. Of course it was consider- 
ed extremely important that the child destined 
to be a general should become robust and pow- 
erful in constitution from his earliest years, and 
that he should be inured to hardship and fa- 
tigue. In the early part of Alexander's life this 
was the main object of attention. 

The name of the nurse who had charge of 
our hero in his infancy was Lannice. She did 
all in her power to give strength and hardihood 
to his constitution, while, at the same time, she 
treated him with kindness and gentleness. 
Alexander acquired a strong affection for her, 
and he treated her with great consideration as 



20 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 350. 

Alexander's education. Lysimachus. Homer. 

long as he lived. He had a governor, also, in 
his early years, named Leonnatus, who had the 
general charge of his education. As soon as he 
was old enough to learn, they appointed him a 
preceptor also, to teach him such branches as 
were generally taught to young princes in those 
days. The name of this preceptor was Lysim- 
achus. 

They had then no printed books, but there 
were a few writings on parchment rolls which 
young scholars were taught to read. Some of 
these writings were treatises on philosophy, oth- 
ers were romantic histories, narrating the ex- 
ploits of the heroes of those days — of course, with 
much exaggeration and embellishment. There 
were also some poems, still more romantic than 
the histories, though generally on the same 
themes. The greatest productions of this kind 
were the writings of Homer, an ancient poet 
who lived and wrote four or five hundred years 
before Alexander's day. The young Alexander 
was greatly delighted with Homer's tales. These 
tales are narrations of the exploits and adven- 
tures of certain great warriors at the siege of 
Troy — a siege which lasted ten years — and they 
are written with so much beauty and force, they 
contain such admirable delineations of charac- 



B.C. 350.] Childhood and Youth. 21 

Aristotle. Alexander's copy of Homer. 

ter, and such graphic and vivid descriptions of 
romantic adventures, and picturesque and strik- 
ing scenes, that they have been admired in every 
age by all who have learned to understand the 
language in which they are written. 

Alexander could understand them very easily, 
as they were written in his mother tongue. He 
was greatly excited by the narrations them- 
selves, and pleased with the flowing smoothness 
of the verse in which the tales were told. In 
the latter part of his course of education he was 
placed under the charge of Aristotle, who was 
one of the most eminent philosophers of ancient 
times. Aristotle had a beautiful copy of Ho- 
mer's poems prepared expressly for Alexander, 
taking great pains to have it transcribed with 
perfect correctness, and in the most elegant 
manner. Alexander carried this copy with him 
in all his campaigns. Some years afterward, 
when he was obtaining conquests over the Per- 
sians, he took, among the spoils of one of his vic- 
tories, a very beautiful and costly casket, which 
King Darius had used for his jewelry or for some 
other rich treasures. Alexander determined to 
make use of this box as a depository for his beau- 
tiful copy of Homer, and he always carried it 
with him, thus protected, in all his subsequent 
campaigns. 



22 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 350. 

Alexander's energy and ambition. The Persian embassadors. 

Alexander was full of energy and spirit, but he 
was, at the same time, like all who ever become 
truly great, of a reflective and considerate turn 
of mind. He was very fond of the studies which 
Aristotle led him to pursue, although they were 
of a very abstruse and difficult character. He 
made great progress in metaphysical philosophy 
and mathematics, by which means his powers 
of calculation and his judgment were greatly 
improved. 

He early evinced a great degree of ambition. 
His father Philip was a powerful warrior, and 
made many conquests in various parts of Greece, 
though he did not cross into Asia. When news 
of Philip's victories came into Macedon, all the 
rest of the court would be filled with rejoicing 
and delight ; but Alexander, on such occasions, 
looked thoughtful and disappointed, and com- 
plained that his father would conquer every 
country, and leave him nothing to do. 

At one time some embassadors from the Per- 
sian court arrived in Macedon when Philip was 
away. These embassadors saw Alexander, of 
course, and had opportunities to converse with 
him. They expected that he would be interest- 
ed in hearing about the splendors, and pomp, 
and parade of the Persian monarchy. They 



B.C. 340.] Childhood and Youth. 23 

Stories of the embassadors. Maturity of Alexander's mind. 

had stories to tell him about the famous hang- 
ing gardens, which were artificially constructed 
in the most magnificent manner, on arches rais- 
ed high in the air ; and about a vine made of 
gold, with all sorts of precious stones upon it in- 
stead of fruit, which was wrought as an orna- 
ment over the throne on which the King of Per- 
sia often gave audience ; of the splendid palaces 
and vast cities of the Persians ; and the ban- 
quets, and fetes, and magnificent entertain- 
ments and celebrations which they used to have 
there. They found, however, to their surprise, 
that Alexander was not interested in hearing 
about any of these things. He would always 
turn the conversation from them to inquire 
about the geographical position of the different 
Persian countries, the various routes leading 
into the interior, the organization of the Asiat- 
ic armies, their system of military tactics, and, 
especially, the character and habits of Artax- 
erxes, the Persian king. 

The embassadors were very much surprised 
at such evidences of maturity of mind, and of 
far-seeing and reflective powers on the part of 
the young prince. They could not help com- 
paring him with Artaxerxes. " Alexander," 
said they, " is great, while our king is only 



24 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 340. 

Secret of Alexander's success. The story of Bucephalus. 

richP The truth of the judgment which these 
embassadors thus formed in respect to the qual- 
ities of the young Macedonian, compared with 
those held in highest estimation on the Asiatic 
side, was fully confirmed in the subsequent 
stages of Alexander's career. 

In fact, this combination of a calm and cal- 
culating thoughtfulness, with the ardor and en- 
ergy which formed the basis of his character, 
was one great secret of Alexander's success. 
The story of Bucephalus, his famous horse, il- 
lustrates this in a very striking manner. This 
animal was a war-horse of very spirited charac- 
ter, which had been sent as a present to Philip 
while Alexander was young. They took the 
horse out into one of the parks connected with 
the palace, and the king, together with many 
of his courtiers, went out to view him. The 
horse pranced about in a very furious manner, 
and seemed entirely unmanageable. No one 
dared to mount him. Philip, instead of being 
gratified at the present, was rather disposed to 
be displeased that they had sent him an animal 
of so fiery and apparently vicious a nature that 
nobody dared to attempt to subdue him. 

In the mean time, while all the other by- 
standers were joining in the general condemna- 



B.C. 340.] Childhood and Youth. 25 

Philip condemns the horse. Alexander desires to mount him. 

tion of the horse, Alexander stood quietly by, 
watching his motions, and attentively studying 
his character. He perceived that a part of the 
difficulty was caused by the agitations which 
the horse experienced in so strange and new a 
scene, and that he appeared, also, to be some- 
what frightened by his own shadow, which hap- 
pened at that time to be thrown very strongly 
and distinctly upon the ground. He saw other 
indications, also, that the high excitement which 
the horse felt was not viciousness, but the ex- 
cess of noble and generous impulses. It was 
courage, ardor, and the consciousness of great 
nervous and muscular power. 

Philip had decided that the horse was useless, 
and had given orders to have him sent back to 
Thessaly, whence he came. Alexander was 
very much concerned at the prospect of losing 
so fine an animal. He begged his father to al- 
low him to make the experiment of mounting 
him. Philip at first refused, thinking it very 
presumptuous for such a youth to attempt to 
subdue an animal so vicious that all his experi- 
enced horsemen and grooms condemned him ; 
however, he at length consented. Alexander 
went up to the horse and took hold of his bridle. 
He patted him upon the neck, and soothed him 



26 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 340. 

Bucephalus calmed. An exciting ride. 

with his voice, showing, at the same time, by 
his easy and unconcerned manner, that he was 
not in the least afraid of him. A spirited horse 
knows immediately when any one approaches 
him in a timid or cautious manner. He appears 
to look with contempt on such a master, and to 
determine not to submit to him. On the con- 
trary, horses seem to love to yield obedience to 
man, when the individual who exacts the obe- 
dience possesses those qualities of coolness and 
courage which their instincts enable them to ap- 
preciate. 

At any rate, Bucephalus was calmed and sub- 
dued by the presence of Alexander. He allow- 
ed himself to be caressed. Alexander turned 
his head in such a direction as to prevent his 
seeing his shadow. He quietly and gently laid 
off a sort of cloak which he wore, and sprang 
upon the horse's back. Then, instead of attempt- 
ing to restrain him, and worrying and checking 
him by useless efforts to hold him in, he gave 
him the rein freely, and animated and encour- 
aged him with his voice, so that tne horse flew 
across the plains at the top of his speed, the king 
and the courtiers looking on, at first with fear 
and trembling, but soon afterward with feelings 
of the greatest admiration and pleasure. After 



B.C.340.] Childhood and Youth. 29 

Sagacity of Bucephalus. Becomes Alexander'* favorite. 

the horse had satisfied himself with his run it 
was easy to rein him in, and Alexander return- 
ed with him in safety to the king. The courtiers 
overwhelmed him with their praises and congrat- 
ulations. Philip commended him very highly : 
he told him that he deserved a larger kingdom 
than Macedon to govern. 

Alexander's judgment of the true character 
of the horse proved to be correct. He became 
very tractable and docile, yielding a ready sub- 
mission to his master in every thing. He would 
kneel upon his fore legs at Alexander's com- 
mand, in order that he might mount more eas- 
ily. Alexander retained him for a long time, 
and made him his favorite war horse. A great 
many stories are related by the historians of 
those days of his sagacity and his feats of war. 
Whenever he was equipped for the field with 
his military trappings, he seemed to be highly 
elated with pride and pleasure, and at such 
times he would not allow any one but Alex- 
ander to mount him. 

What became of him at last is not certainly 
known. There are two accounts of his end. 
One is, that on a certain occasion Alexander 
got carried too far into the midst of his enemies, 
on a battle field, and that, after fighting desper- 



30 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 338. 

Fate of Bucephalus. Alexander made regent. 

ately for some time, Bucephalus made the most 
extreme exertions to carry him away. He was 
severely wounded again and again, and though 
his strength was nearly gone, he would not stop, 
but pressed forward till he had carried his mas- 
ter away to a place of safety, and that then he 
dropped down exhausted, and died. It may be, 
however, that he did not actually die at this 
time, but slowly recovered ; for some historians 
relate that he lived to be thirty years old — 
which is quite an old age for a horse — and that 
he then died. Alexander caused him to be 
buried with great ceremony, and built a small 
city upon the spot in honor of his memory. The 
name of this city was Bucephalia. 

Alexander's character matured rapidly, and 
he began very early to act the part of a man. 
When he was only sixteen years of age, his fa- 
ther, Philip, made him regent of Macedon 
while he was absent on a great military cam- 
paign among the other states of Greece. With- 
out doubt Alexander had, in this regency, the 
counsel and aid of high officers of state of great 
experience and ability. He acted, however, 
himself, in this high position, with great energy 
and with complete success ; and, at the same 
time, with all that modesty of deportment, and 



B.C. 338.] Childhood and Youth. 31 

Alexander's first battle. Chaeronea. 

that delicate consideration for the officers under 
him — who, though inferior in rank, were yet his 
superiors in age and experience — which his po- 
sition rendered proper, but which few persons 
so young as he would have manifested in cir- 
cumstances so well calculated to awaken the 
feelings of vanity and elation. 

Afterward, when Alexander was about eigh- 
teen years old, his father took him with Trim on 
a campaign toward the south, during which 
Philip fought one of his great battles at Chaer- 
onea, in Boeotia. In the arrangements for this 
battle, Philip gave the command of one of the 
wings of the army to Alexander, while he re- 
served the other for himself. He felt some so- 
licitude in giving his young son so important a 
charge, but he endeavored to guard against the 
danger of an unfortunate result by putting the 
ablest generals on Alexander's side, while he re- 
served those on whom he could place less reli- 
ance for his own. Thus organized, the army 
went into battle. 

Philip soon ceased to feel any solicitude for 
Alexander's part of the duty. Boy as he was, 
the young prince acted with the utmost bravery, 
coolness, and discretion. The wing which he 
commanded was victorious, and Philip was oblig- 



32 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 338. 

Alexander's impetuosity. Philip repudiates Olyuipias. 

ed to urge himself and the officers with him to 
greater exertions, to avoid being outdone by his 
son. In the end Philip was completely victori- 
ous, and the result of this great battle was to 
make his power paramount and supreme over 
all the states of Greece. 

Notwithstanding, however, the extraordina- 
ry discretion and wisdom which characterized 
the mind of Alexander in his early years, he 
was often haughty and headstrong, and in 
cases where his pride or his resentment were 
aroused, he was sometimes found very impetu- 
ous and uncontrollable. His mother Olympias 
was of a haughty and imperious temper, and 
she quarreled with her husband, King Philip ; 
or, perhaps, it ought rather to be said that he 
quarreled with her. Each is said to have been 
unfaithful to the other, and, after a bitter con- 
tention, Philip repudiated his wife and married 
another lady. Among the festivities held on 
the occasion of this marriage, there was a great 
banquet, at which Alexander was present, and 
an incident occurred which strikingly illustrates 
the impetuosity of his character. 

One of the guests at this banquet, in saying 
something complimentary to the new queen, 
made use of expressions which, Alexander con- 



B.C. 398.] Childhood and Youth. 33 

Alexander's violent temper. Philip's attempt on his son. 

sidered as in disparagement of the character of 
his mother and of his own birth. His anger was 
immediately aroused. He threw the cup from 
which he had been drinking at the offenders' 
head. Attalus, for this was his name, threw 
his cup at Alexander in return ; the guests at 
the table where they were sitting rose, and a 
scene of uproar and confusion ensued. 

Philip, incensed at such an interruption of 
the order and harmony of the wedding feast, 
drew his sword and rushed toward Alexander, 
but by some accident he stumbled and fell upon 
the floor. Alexander looked upon his fallen 
father with contempt and scorn, and exclaimed, 
"What a fine hero the states of Greece have 
to lead their armies — a man that can not get 
across the floor without tumbling down." He 
then turned away and left the palace. Imme- 
diately afterward he joined his mother Olympi- 
as, and went away with her to her native coun- 
try, Epirus, where the mother and son remain- 
ed for a time in a state of open quarrel with 
the husband and father. 

*[n the mean time Philip had been planning 

a great expedition into Asia. He had arranged 

the affairs of his own kingdom, and had formed 

a strong combination among the states of Greece, 

C ' 



34 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Philip's power. His plans of conquest. 

by which powerful armies had been raised, and 
he had been designated to command them. His 
mind was very intently engaged in this vast 
enterprise. He was in the flower of his years, 
and at the height of his power. His own king- 
dom was in a very prosperous and thriving con- 
dition, and his ascendency over the other king- 
doms and states on the European side had been 
fully established. He was excited with ambi- 
tion, and full of hope. He was proud of his 
son Alexander, and was relying upon his effi- 
cient aid in his schemes of conquest and ag- 
grandizement. He had married a youthful and 
beautiful bride, and was surrounded by scenes 
of festivity, congratulation, and rejoicing. He 
was looking forward to a very brilliant career, 
considering all the deeds that he had done and 
all the glory which he had acquired as only the 
introduction and prelude to the far more distin- 
guished and conspicuous part which he was in- 
tending to perform. 

Alexander, in the mean time, ardent and im- 
petuous, and eager for glory as he was, looked 
upon the position and prospects of his father 
with some envy and jealousy. He was impa- 
tient to be monarch himself. His taking sides 
so promptly with his mother in the domestic 



B.C. 336.] Childhood and Youth. 35 



Alexandei-'s impatience to reign. 



quarrel was partly owing to the feeling that his 
father was a hinderancc and an obstacle in the 
way of his own greatness and fame. He felt 
within himself powers and capacities qualifying 
him to take his father's place, and reap for him- 
self the harvest of glory and power which seem- 
ed to await the Grecian armies in the coming 
campaign. While his father lived, however, he 
could be only a prince ; influential, accomplish- 
ed, and popular, it is true, but still without any 
substantial and independent power. He was 
restless and uneasy at the thought that, as his 
father was in the prime and vigor of manhood, 
many long years must elapse before he could 
emerge from this confined and subordinate con- 
dition. His restlessness and uneasiness were, 
however, suddenly ended by a very extraordi- 
nary occurrence, which called him, with scarce- 
ly an hour's notice, to take his father's place 
upon the throne. 



36 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Philip is reconciled to Olympias and Alexander. 



Chapter II. 
Beginning of his Reign. 

ALEXANDER was suddenly called upon 
to succeed his father on the Macedonian 
throne, in the most unexpected manner, and in 
the midst of scenes of the greatest excitement 
and agitation. The circumstances were these : 

Philip had felt very desirous, before setting 
out upon his great expedition into Asia, to be- 
come reconciled to Alexander and Olympias. 
He wished for Alexander's co-operation in his 
plans ; and then, besides, it would be dangerous 
to go away from his own dominions with such 
a son left behind, in a state of resentment and 
hostility. 

So Philip sent kind and conciliatory messages 
to Olympias and Alexander, who had gone, it 
will be recollected, to Epirus, where her friends 
resided. The brother of Olympias was King of 
Epirus. He had been at first incensed at the 
indignity which had been put upon his sister 
by Philip's treatment of her ; but Philip now 
tried to appease his anger, also, by friendly ne- 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 37 

Olympias and Alexander returned. The great wedding. 

gotiations and messages. At last he arranged 
a marriage between this King of Epirus and 
one of his own daughters, and this completed 
the reconciliation. Olympias and Alexander 
returned to Macedon, and great preparations 
were made for a very splendid wedding. 

Philip wished to make this wedding not 
merely the means of confirming his reconcilia- 
tion with his former wife and son, and establish- 
ing friendly relations with the King of Epirus : 
he also prized it as an occasion for paying 'mark- 
ed and honorable attention to the princes and 
great generals of the other states of Greece. He 
consequently made his preparations on a very 
extended and sumptuous scale, and sent invita- 
tions to the influential and prominent men far 
and near. 

These great men, on the other hand, and all 
the other public authorities in the various Gre- 
cian states, sent compliments, congratulations, 
and presents to Philip, each seeming ambitious 
to contribute his share to the splendor of the 
celebration. They were not wholly disinterest- 
ed in this, it is true. As Philip had been made 
commander-in-chief of the Grecian armies which 
were about to undertake the conquest of Asia, 
and as, of course, his influence and power in 



38 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Preparations for the wedding. Costly presents. 

all that related to that vast enterprise would be 
paramount and supreme ; and as all were am- 
bitious to have a large share in the glory of that 
expedition, and to participate, as much as pos- 
sible, in the power and in the renown which 
seemed to be at Philip's disposal, all were, of 
course, very anxious to secure his favor. A 
short time before, they were contending against 
him ; but now, since he had established his as- 
cendency, they all eagerly joined in the work 
of magnifying it and making it illustrious. 

Nor could Philip justly complain of the hol- 
lowness and falseness of these professions of 
friendship. The compliments and favors which 
he offered to them were equally hollow and 
heartless. He wished to secure their favor as 
a means of aiding him up the steep path to 
fame and power which he was attempting to 
climb. They wished for his, in order that he 
might, as he ascended himself, help them up 
with him. There was, however, the greatest 
appearance of cordial and devoted friendship. 
Some cities sent him presents of golden crowns, 
beautifully wrought, and of high cost. Others 
dispatched embassies, expressing their good 
wishes for him, and their confidence in the suc- 
cess of his plans. Athens, the city which was 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 39 

Celebration of the wedding. Games and spectacles. 

the great seat of literature and science in Greece, 
sent a poem, in which the history of the expedi- 
tion into Persia was given by anticipation. In 
this poem Philip was, of course,- triumphantly 
successful in his enterprise. He conducted his 
armies in safety through the most dangerous 
passes and denies ; he fought glorious battles, 
gained magnificent victories, and possessed him- 
self of all the treasures of Asiatic wealth and 
power. It ought to be stated, however, in jus- 
tice to the poet, that, in narrating these imagi- 
nary exploits, he had sufficient delicacy to rep- 
resent Philip and the Persian monarch by ficti- 
tious names. 

The wedding was at length celebrated, in one 
of the cities of Macedon, with great pomp and 
splendor. There were games, and shows, and 
military and civic spectacles of all kinds to 
amuse the thousands of spectators that assem- 
bled to witness them. In one of these specta- 
cles they had a procession of statues of the gods. 
There were twelve of these statues, sculptured 
with great art, and they were borne along on 
elevated pedestals, with censers, and incense, 
and various ceremonies of homage, while vast 
multitudes of spectators lined the way. There 
was a thirteenth statue, more magnificent than 



40 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Statues of the gods. Military procession. 

the other twelve, which represented Philip him- 
self in the character of a god. 

This was not, however, so impious as it would 
at first view seem, for the gods whom the an- 
cients worshiped were, in fact, only deifications 
of old heroes and kings who had lived in early 
times, and had acquired a reputation for super- 
natural powers by the fame of their exploits, ex- 
aggerated in descending by tradition in super- 
stitious times. The ignorant multitude accord- 
ingly, in those days, looked up to a living king 
with almost the same reverence and homage 
which they felt for their deified heroes; and 
these deified heroes furnished them with all the 
ideas they had of God. Making a monarch a 
god, therefore, was no very extravagant flattery. 

After the procession of the statues passed 
along, there came bodies of troops, with trum- 
pets sounding and banners flying. The officers 
rode on horses elegantly caparisoned, and pranc- 
ing proudly. These troops escorted princes, 
embassadors, generals, and great officers of 
state, all gorgeously decked in their robes, and 
wearing their badges and insignia. 

At length King Philip himself appeared in 
the procession. He had arranged to have a 
large space left, in the middle of which he was 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 41 

Appearance of Philip. The scene changed. 

to walk. This was done in order to make his 
position the more conspicuous, and to mark 
more strongly his own high distinction above 
all the other potentates present on the occasion. 
Guards preceded and followed him, though at 
considerable distance, as has been already said. 
He was himself clothed with white robes, and 
his head was adorned with a splendid crown. 

The procession was moving toward a great 
theater, where certain games and spectacles 
were to be exhibited. The statues of the gods 
were to be» taken into the theater, and placed 
in conspicuous positions there, in the view of 
the assembly, and then the procession itself 
was to follow. All the statues had entered ex- 
cept that of Philip, which was just at the door, 
and Philip himself was advancing in the midst 
of the space left for him, up the avenue by 
which the theater was approached, when an oc- 
currence took place by which the whole char- 
acter of the scene, the destiny of Alexander, 
and the fate of fifty nations, was suddenly and 
totally changed. It was this. An officer of 
the guards, who had his position in the proces- 
sion near the king, was seen advancing impetu- 
ously toward him, through the space which sep- 
arated him from the rest, and, before the specta- 



42 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Assassination of Philip. Alexander proclaimed king. 

tors had time even to wonder what he was go- 
ing to do, he stabbed him to the heart. Philip 
fell down in the street and died. 

A scene of indescribable tumult and confu- 
sion ensued. The murderer was immediately 
cut to pieces by the other guards. They found, 
however, before he was dead, that it was Pau- 
sanias, a man of high standing and influence, a 
general officer of the guards. He had had horses 
provided, and other assistance ready, to enable 
him to make his escape, but he was cut down 
by the guards before he could avail himself of 
them. 

An officer of state immediately hastened to 
Alexander, and announced to him his father's 
death and his own accession to the throne. An 
assembly of the leading counselors and states- 
men was called, in a hasty and tumultuous 
manner, and Alexander was proclaimed king 
with prolonged and general acclamations. Al- 
exander made a speech in reply. The great as- 
sembly looked upon his youthful form and face 
as he arose, and listened with intense interest 
to hear what he had to say. He was between 
nineteen and twenty years of age ; but, though 
thus really a boy, he spoke with all the decision 
and confidence of an energetic man. He said 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 43 

Alexander's speech. Demosthenes' Philippics. 

that he should at once assume his father's posi- 
tion, and carry forward his plans. He hoped to 
do this so efficiently that every thing would go 
directly onward, just as if his father had con- 
tinued to live, and that the nation would find 
that the only change which had taken place was 
in the name of the king. 

The motive which induced Pausanias to mur- 
der Philip in this manner was never fully as- 
certained. There were various opinions about 
it. One was, that it was an act of private re- 
venge, occasioned by some neglect or injury 
which Pausanias had received from Philip. 
Others thought that the murder was instigated 
by a party in the states of Greece, who were 
hostile to Philip, and unwilling that he should 
command the allied armies that were about to 
penetrate into Asia. Demosthenes, the cele- 
brated orator, was Philip's great enemy among 
the Greeks. Many of his most powerful ora- 
tions were made for the purpose of arousing his 
countrymen to resist his ambitious plans and 
to curtail his power. These orations were call- 
ed his Philippics, and from this origin has aris- 
en the practice, which .has prevailed ever since 
that day, of applying the term philippics to de- 
note, in general, any strongly denunciatory ha- 
rangues. 



44 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

The Greeks suspected of the murder. The Persians also. 

Now Demosthenes, it is said, who was at this 
time in Athens, announced the death of Philip 
in an Athenian assembly before it was possible 
that the news could have been conveyed there. 
He accounted for his early possession of the in- 
telligence by saying it was communicated to 
him by some of the gods. Many persons have 
accordingly supposed that the plan of assassin- 
ating Philip was devised in Greece ; that De- 
mosthenes was a party to it; that Pausanias 
was the agent for carrying it into execution; 
and that Demosthenes was so confident of the 
success of the plot, and exulted so much in this 
certainty, that he could not resist the tempta- 
tion of thus anticipating its announcement. 

There were other persons who thought that 
the Persians had plotted and accomplished this 
murder, having induced Pausanias to execute 
the deed by the promise of great rewards. As 
Pausanias himself, however, had been instantly 
Skilled, there was no opportunity of gaining any 
information from him on the motives of his con- 
duct, even if he would have been disposed to im- 
part any. 

At all events, Alexander found himself sud- 
denly elevated to one of the most conspicuous 
positions in the whole political world. It was 



B.C. o36.] Beginning of his Reign. 45 

Alexander's new position. His designs. 

not simply that he succeeded to the throne of 
Macedon ; even this would have been a lofty po- 
sition for so young a man ; but Macedon was 
a very small part of the realm over which Philip 
had extended his power. The ascendency which 
he had acquired over the whole Grecian empire, 
and the vast arrangements he had made for an 
incursion into Asia, made Alexander the object 
of universal interest and attention. The ques- 
tion was, whether Alexander should attempt to 
take his father's place in respect to all this gen- 
eral power, and undertake to sustain and carry 
on his vast projects, or whether he should con- 
tent himself with ruling, in quiet, over his na- 
tive country of Macedon. 

Most prudent persons would have advised a 
young prince, under such circumstances, to 
have decided upon the latter course. But Alex- 
ander had no idea of bounding his ambition by 
any such limits. He resolved to spring at once 
completely into his father's seat, and not only to 
possess himself of the whole of the power which 
his father had acquired, but to commence, im- 
mediately, the most energetic and vigorous ef- 
forts for a great extension of it. 

His first plan was to punish his father's mur- 
derers. He caused the . circumstances of the 



■ 46 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Murderers of Philip punished. Alexander's first acts. 

case to be investigated, and the persons suspect- 
ed of having been connected with Pausanias in 
the plot to be tried. Although the designs and 
motives of the murderers could never be fully 
ascertained, still several persons were found 
guilty of participating in it, and were condemn- 
ed to death and publicly executed. 

Alexander next decided not to make any 
change in his father's appointments to the great 
offices of state, but to let all the departments of 
public affairs go on in the same hands as be- 
fore. How sagacious a line of conduct was 
this ! Most ardent and enthusiastic young 
men, in the circumstances in which he was 
placed, would have been elated and vain at their 
elevation, and would have replaced the old and 
well-tried servants of the father with personal 
favorites of their own age, inexperienced and 
incompetent, and as conceited as themselves. 
Alexander, however, made no such changes, 
r He continued the old officers in command, en- 
deavoring to have every thing go on just as if 
his father had not died. 

There were two officers in particular who 
were the ministers on whom Philip had mainly 
relied. Their names were Antipater and Par- 
menio. Antipater had charge of the civil, and 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 47 

Tarmenio. Cities of Southern Greece. 

Parmenio of military affairs. Parmeuio was a 
very distinguished general. He was at this 
time nearly sixty years of age. Alexander had 
great confidence in his military powers, and felt 
a strong personal attachment for him. Parme- 
nio entered into the young king's service with 
great readiness, and accompanied him through 
almost the whole of his career. It seemed 
strange to see men of such age, standing, and 
experience, obeying the orders of such a boy ; 
but there was something in the genius, the pow- 
er, and the enthusiasm of Alexander's charac- 
ter which inspired ardor in all around him, and 
.made every one eager to join his standard and 
to aid in the execution of his plans. 

Macedon, as will be seen on the following map, 
was in the northern part of the country occupied 
by the Greeks, and the most powerful states of 
the confederacy and all the great and influen- 
tial cities were south of it. There was Athens, 
which was magnificently built, its splendid cit-^ 
adel crowning a rocky hill in the center of it. 
It was the great seat of literature, philosophy, 
and the arts, and was thus a center of attrac- 
tion for all the civilized world. There was Cor- 
inth, which was distinguished for the gayety 
and pleasure which reigned there. All possible 



48 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Map of Maccdon and Greece. Athens and Corinth. 




means of luxury and amusement were concen- 
trated within its walls. The lovers of knowl- 



edge and of art, from all parts of the earth, 
flocked to Athens, while those in pursuit of 
pleasure, dissipation, and indulgence chose 
Corinth for their home. Corinth was beauti- 
fully situated on the isthmus, with prospects 
of the sea on either hand. It had been a fa- 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 49 

Thebes. Sparta. 

mous city for a thousand years in Alexander's 
day. 

There was also Thebes. Thebes was farther 
north than Athens and Corinth. It was situ- 
ated on an elevated plain, and had, like other 
ancient cities, a strong citadel, where there was 
at this time a Macedonian garrison, which Phil- 
ip had placed there. Thebes was very wealthy 
and powerful. It had also been celebrated as 
the birth-place of many poets and philosophers, 
and other eminent men. Among these was 
Pindar, a very celebrated poet who had flourish- 
ed one or two centuries before the time of Alex- 
ander. His descendants still lived in Thebes, 
and Alexander, some time after this, had occasion 
to confer upon them a very distinguished honor. 

There was Sparta also, called sometimes 
Lacedaemon. The inhabitants of this city were 
famed for their courage, hardihood, and physic- 
al strength, and for the energy with which they 
devoted themselves to the work of war. They 
were nearly all soldiers, and all the arrange- 
ments of the state and of society, and all the 
plans of education, were designed to promote 
military ambition and pride among the officers, 
and. fierce and indomitable courage and endur- 
ance in the men. 

D 



50 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Conquests of Philip. Alexander marches southward. 

These cities and many others, with the states 
which were attached to them, formed a large, 
and flourishing, and very powerful community, 
extending over all that part of Greece which 
lay south of Macedon. Philip, as has been al- 
ready said, had established his own ascendency 
over all this region, though it had cost him 
many perplexing negotiations and some hard- 
fought battles to do it. Alexander considered 
it somewhat uncertain whether the people of all 
these states and cities would be disposed to trans- 
fer readily, to so youthful a prince as he, the 
high commission which his father, a very pow- 
erful monarch and soldier, had extorted from 
them with so much difficulty. What should 
he do in the case ? Should he give up the ex- 
pectation of it ? Should he send embassadors 
to them, presenting his claims to occupy his 
father's place ? Or should he not act at all, 
but wait quietly at home in Macedon until 
they should decide the question ? 

Instead of doing either of these things, Alex- 
ander decided on the very bold step of setting 
out himself, at the head of an army, to march 
into southern Greece, for the purpose of pre- 
senting in person, and, if necessary, of enforc- 
ing his claim to the same post of honor and 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 51 

Pass of Thermopylae. The Amphictyonic Council. 

power which had been conferred upon his father. 
Considering all the circumstances of the case, 
this was perhaps one of the boldest and most de- 
cided steps of Alexander's whole career. Many 
of his Macedonian advisers counseled him not 
to make such an attempt ; but Alexander would 
not listen to any such cautions. He collected 
his forces, and set forth at the head of them. 

Between Macedon and the southern states of 
Greece was a range of lofty and almost impass- 
able mountains. These mountains extended 
through the whole interior of the country, and 
the main route leading into southern Greece 
passed around to the eastward of them, where 
they terminated in cliffs, leaving a narrow pas- 
sage between the cliffs and the sea. This pass 
was called the Pass of Thermopylae, and it was 
considered the key to Greeoe. There was a 
town named Anthela near the pass, on the out- 
ward side. 

There was in those days a sort of general con- 
gress or assembly of the states of Greece, which 
was held from time to time, to decide questions 
and disputes in which the different states were 
continually getting involved with each other. 
This assembly was called the Amphictyonic 
Council, on account, as is said, of its having been 



52 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

March through Thessaly. Alexander's traits of character. 

established by a certain king named Amphicty- 
on. A meeting of this council was appointed to 
receive Alexander. It was to be held at Ther- 
mopylae, or, rather, at Anthela, which was just 
without the pass, and was the usual place at 
which the council assembled. This was be- 
cause the pass was in an intermediate position 
between the northern and southern portions of 
Greece, and thus equally accessible from either. 
In proceeding to the southward, Alexander 
had first to pass through Thessaly, which was 
a very powerful state immediately south of 
Macedon. He met with some show of resist- 
ance at first, but not much. The country was 
impressed with the boldness and decision of 
character manifested in the taking of such a 
course by so young a man. Then, too, Alex- 
ander, so far as he became personally known, 
made a very favorable impression upon every 
one. His manly and athletic form, his frank 
and open manners, his spirit, his generosity, 
and a certain air of confidence, independence, 
and conscious superiority, which were com- 
bined, as they always are in the case of true 
greatness, with an unaffected and unassuming 
modesty — these and other traits, which were 
obvious to all who sa$v him, in the person and 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 53 

The Thessaliana join Alexander. He sits in the Amphictyonic Council. 

character of Alexander, made every one his 
friend. Common men take pleasure in yield- 
ing to the influence and ascendency of one 
whose spirit they see and feel stands on a high- 
er eminence and wields higher powers than 
their own. They like a leader. It is true, they 
must feel confident of his superiority ; but when 
this superiority stands out so clearly and dis- 
tinctly marked, combined, too, with all the gra- 
ces and attractions of youth and manly beauty, 
as it was in the case of Alexander, the minds 
of men are brought very easily and rapidly un- 
der its sway. 

The Thessalians gave Alexander a very fa- 
vorable reception. They expressed a cordial 
readiness to instate him in the position which 
his father had occupied. They joined their for- 
ces to his, and proceeded southward toward the 
Pass of Thermopylae. 

Here the great council was held. Alexander 
took his place in it as a member. Of course, he 
must have been an object of universal interest 
and attention. The impression which he made 
here seems to have been very favorable. After 
this assembly separated, Alexander proceeded 
southward, accompanied by his own forces, and 
tended by the various ponces and potentates 



54 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Thermopylae. Leonidas and his Spartans. 

of Greece, with their attendants and followers. 
The feelings of exultation and pleasure with 
which the young king denied through the Pass 
of Thermopylae, thus attended, must have been 
exciting in the extreme. 

The Pass of Thermopylae was a scene strong- 
ly associated with ideas of military glory and 
renown. It was here that, about a hundred and 
fifty years before, Leonidas, a Spartan general, 
with only three hundred soldiers, had attempted 
to withstand the pressure of an immense Per- 
sian force which was at that time invading 
Greece. He was one of the kings of Sparta, 
and he had the command, not only of his three 
hundred Spartans, but also of all the allied for- 
ces of the Greeks that had been assembled to 
repel the Persian invasion. With the help of 
these allies he withstood the Persian forces for 
some time, and as the pass was so narrow be- 
tween the cliffs and the sea, he was enabled to 
resist them successfully. At length, however, 
a strong detachment from the immense Persian 
army contrived to find their way over the mount- 
ains and around the pass, so as to establish them- 
selves in a position from which they could come 
down upon the small Greek army in their rear. 
Leonidas, perceiving this, ordered all his allies 



B.C. 336.] Beginning of his Reign. 55 

Death of Leonidas. Spartan valor. 

from the other states of Greece to withdraw, 
leaving himself and his three hundred country- 
men alone in the defile, 

He did not expect to repel his enemies or to 
defend the pass. He knew that he must die, 
and all his brave followers with him, and that 
the torrent of invaders would pour down through 
the pass over their bodies. But he considered 
himself stationed there to defend the passage, 
and he would not desert his post. When the 
battle came on he was the first to fall. The 
soldiers gathered around him and defended his 
dead body as long as they could. At length, 
overpowered by the immense numbers of their 
foes, they were all killed but one man. He 
made his escape and returned to Sparta. A 
monument was erected on the spot with this in- 
scription : " Go, traveler, to Sparta, and say that 
we lie here, on the spot at which we were sta- 
tioned to defend our country." 

Alexander passed through the defile. He ad- 
vanced to the great cities south of it — to Athens, 
to Thebes, and to Corinth. Another great as- 
sembly of alL the monarchs and potentates of 
Greece was convened in Corinth ; and here Al- 
exander attained the object of his ambition, in 
having the command of the great expedition into 



56 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 336. 

Alexander made commander-in-chief. He returns to Macedon. 

Asia conferred upon him. The impression which 
he made upon those with whom he came into 
connection by his personal qualities must have 
been favorable in the extreme. That such a 
youthful prince should be selected by so power- 
ful a confederation of nations as their leader in 
such an enterprise as they were about to en- 
gage in, indicates a most extraordinary power 
on his part of acquiring an ascendency over the 
minds of men, and of impressing all with a sense 
of his commanding superiority. Alexander re- 
turned to Macedon from his expedition to the 
southward in triumph, and began at once to 
arrange the affairs of his kingdom, so as to be 
ready to enter, unembarrassed, upon the great 
career of conquest which he imagined was be- 
fore him. 






B.C. 335.] The Reaction. 57 

Mount Hffinius. Thrace. 




Chapter III. 

The Reaction. 

FT! HE country which was formerly occupied 
-*- by Macedon and the other states of Greece 
is now Turkey in Europe. In the northern part 
of it is a vast chain of mountains called now the 
Balkan. In Alexander's day it was Mount Hae- 
mus. This chain forms a broad belt of lofty 
and uninhabitable land, and extends from the 
Black Sea to the Adriatic. 

A branch of this mountain range, called Rho- 
dope, extends southwardly from about the mid- 
dle of its length, as may be seen by the map. 
Rhodope separated Macedonia from a large and 
powerful country, which was occupied by a 
somewhat rude but warlike race of men. This 
country was Thrace. Thrace was one great fer- 
tile basin or valley, sloping toward the center 
in every direction, so that all the streams from 
the mountains, increased by the rains which fell 
over the whole surface of the ground, flowed to- 
gether into one river, which meandered through 
the center of the valley, and flowed out at last 
into the iEgean Sea. The name of this river 



>8 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 



The Hebrus. Valley of the D anube. 

was the Hebrus. All this may be seen distinct- 
ly upon the map. 




The Balkan, or Mount Haemus, as it was 
then- called, formed the great northern frontier 
of Macedon and Thrace. From the summits of 
the range, looking northward, the eye surveyed 
a vast extent of land, constituting one of the 
most extensive and fertile valleys on the ?lobe. 



B.C. 335.] Tin: Reaction. 59 

Thrace. Revolt among the northern nations. 

It was the valley of the Danube. It was in- 
habited, in those days, by rude tribes whom the 
Greeks and Romans always designated as bar- 
barians. They were, at any rate, wild and war- 
like, and, as they had not the art of writing, 
they have left us no records of their institutions 
or their history. We know nothing of them, or 
of the other half-civilized nations that occupied 
the central parts of Europe in those days, ex- 
cept what their inveterate and perpetual ene- 
mies have thought fit to tell us. According to 
their story, these countries were filled with na- 
tions and tribes of a wild and half-savage char- 
acter, who could be kept in check only by the 
most vigorous exertion of military power. 

Soon after Alexander's return into Macedon, 
he learned that there were symptoms of revolt 
among these nations. Philip had subdued them, 
and established the kind of peace which the 
Greeks and Romans were accustomed to en- 
force upon their neighbors. But now, as they 
had heard that Philip, who had been so terrible 
a warrior, was no more, and that his son, scarce- 
ly out of his teens, had succeeded to the throne, 
they thought a suitable occasion had arrived to 
try their strength. Alexander made immediate 
arrangements for moving northward with his 
army to settle this question. 



60 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

Alexander marches north. Old Boreaa. 

He conducted his forces through a part of 
Thrace without meeting with any serious re- 
sistance, and approached the mountains. The 
soldiers looked upon the rugged precipices and 
lofty summits before them with awe. These 
northern mountains were the seat and throne, 
in the imaginations of the Greeks and Romans, 
of old Boreas, the hoary god of the north wind. 
They conceived of him as dwelling among those 
cold and stormy summits, and making excur- 
sions in winter, carrying with him his vast 
stores of frost and snow, over the southern val- 
leys and plains. He had wings, a long beard, 
and white locks, all powdered with flakes of 
snow. Instead of feet, his body terminated in 
tails of serpents, which, as he flew along, lashed 
the air, writhing from under his robes. He was 
violent and impetuous in temper, rejoicing in 
the devastation of winter, and in all the sublime 
phenomena of tempests, cold, and snow. The 
Greek conception of Boreas made an impression 
upon the human mind that twenty centuries 
have not been able to efface. The north wind 
of winter is personified as Boreas to the pres- 
ent day in the literature of every nation of the 
Western world. 

The Thracian forces had assembled in the de- 



B.C. 335.] The Reaction. 61 

Contest among the mountains. The loaded wagons. 

files, with other troops from the northern coun- 
tries, to arrest Alexander's march, and he had 
some difficulty in repelling them. They had 
got, it is said, some sort of loaded wagons upon 
the summit of an ascent, in the pass of the 
mountains, up which Alexander's forces would 
have to march. These wagons were to be run 
down upon them as they ascended. Alexander 
ordered his men to advance, notwithstanding this 
danger. He directed them, where it was prac- 
ticable, to open to one side and the other, and 
allow the descending wagon to pass through. 
"When this could not be done, they were to fall 
down upon the ground when they saw this 
strange military engine coming, and locking 
their shields together over their heads, allow the 
wagon to roll on over them, bracing up ener- 
getically against its weight. Notwithstanding 
these precautions, and the prodigious muscular 
power with which they were carried into effect, 
some of the men were crushed. The great body 
of the army was, however, unharmed ; as soon 
as the force of the wagons was spent, they 
rushed up the ascent, and attacked their ene- 
mies with their pikes. The barbarians fled in 
all directions, terrified at the force and invul- 
nerability of men whom loaded wagons, rolling 



62 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

Alexander's victorious march. Mouths of the Danube. 

over their bodies down a steep descent, could 
not kill. 

Alexander advanced from one conquest like 
this to another, moving toward the northward 
and eastward after he had crossed the mount- 
ains, until at length he approached the mouths 
of the Danube. Here one of the great chieftains 
of the barbarian tribes had taken up his posi- 
tion, with his family and court, and a principal 
part of his army, upon an island called Peuce, 
which may be seen upon the map at the begin- 
ning of this chapter. This island divided the 
current of the stream, and Alexander, in at- 
tempting to attack it, found that it would be 
best to endeavor to effect a landing upon the 
upper point of it. 

To make this attempt, he collected all the 
boats and vessels which he could obtain, and 
embarked his troops in them above, directing 
them to fall down with the current, and to land 
upon the island. This plan, however, did not 
succeed very well ; the current was too rapid 
for the proper management of the boats. The 
shores, too, were lined with the forces of the 
enemy, who discharged showers of spears and 
arrows at the men, and pushed off the boats 
when they attempted to land. Alexander at 



B.C. 335.] T 11 e Reac t ion. 6^ 

Alexander resolves to cross the Danube. Preparations. 

length gave up the attempt, and concluded to 
leave the island, and to cross the river itself 
further above, and thus carry the war into the 
very heart of the country. 

It is a serious undertaking to get a great body 
of men and horses across a broad and rapid riv- 
er, when the people of the country have done all 
in their power to remove or destroy all possible 
means of transit, and when hostile bands are on 
the opposite bank, to embarrass and impede the 
operations by every mode in their power. Al- 
exander, however, advanced to the undertaking 
with great resolution. To cross the Danube es- 
pecially, with a military force, was, in those 
days, in the estimation of the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, a very great exploit. The river was so 
distant, so broad and rapid, and its banks were 
bordered and defended by such ferocious foes, 
that to cross its eddying tide, and penetrate into 
the unknown and unexplored regions beyond, 
leaving the broad, and deep, and rapid stream 
to cut off the hopes of retreat, implied the pos- 
session of extreme self-reliance, courage, and 
decision. 

Alexander collected all the canoes and boats 
which he could obtain up and down the river. 
He built large rafts, attaching to them the skins 



64 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335 

The river crossed. The landing. 

of beasts sewed together and inflated, to give 
them buoyancy. When all was ready, they be- 
gan the transportation of the army in the night, 
in a place where the enemy had not expected 
that the attempt would have been made. There 
were a thousand horses, with their riders, and 
four thousand foot soldiers, to be conveyed across. 
It is customary, in such cases, to swim the horses 
over, leading them by lines, the ends of which 
are held by men in boats. The men themselves, 
with all the arms, ammunition, and baggage, had 
to be carried over in the boats or upon the rafts. 
Before morning the whole was accomplished. 

The army landed in a field of grain. This 
circumstance, which is casually mentioned by 
historians, and also the story of the wagons in 
the passes of Mount Hsemujg, proves that these 
northern nations were not absolute barbarians 
in the sense in which that term is used at the 
present day. The arts of cultivation and of con- 
struction must have made some progress among 
them, at any rate; and they proved, by some of 
their conflicts with Alexander, that they were 
well-trained and well-disciplined soldiers. 

The Macedonians swept down the waving 
grain with their pikes, to open a way for the 
advance of the cavalry, and early in the morn- 



B.C.335.] The Reaction. 65 

Northern nations subdued. Alexander returns to Macedon. 

ing Alexander found and attacked the army of 
his enemies, who were utterly astonished at 
finding him on their side of the river. As may 
be easily anticipated, the barbarian army was 
beaten in the battle that ensued. Their city 
was taken. The booty was taken back across 
the Danube to be distributed among the soldiers 
of the army. The neighboring nations and trihes 
were overawed and subdued by this exhibition 
of Alexander's courage and energy. He made 
satisfactory treaties with them all ; took hosta- 
ges, where necessary, to secure the observance 
of the treaties, and then recrossed the Danube 
and set out on his return to Macedon. 

He found that it was time for him to return. 
The southern cities and states of Greece had 
not been unanimous in raising him to the office 
which his father had held. The Spartans and 
some others were opposed to him. The party 
thus opposed were inactive and silent while Al- 
exander was in their country, on his first visit 
to southern Greece ; but after his return they 
began to contemplate more decisive action, and 
afterward, when they heard of his having un- 
dertaken so desperate an enterprise as going 
northward with his forces, and actually cross- 
ing the Danube, they considered him as so com- 
E 



66 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

Rebellion of Thebes. Siege of the citadel. 

pletely out of the way that they grew very cour- 
ageous, and meditated open rebellion. 

The city of Thebes did at length rebel. Philip 
had conquered this city in former struggles, and 
had left a Macedonian garrison there in the cit- 
adel. The name of the citadel was Cadmeia. 
The officers of the garrison, supposing that all 
was secure, left the soldiers in the citadel, and 
came, themselves, down to the city to reside. 
Things were in this condition when the rebellion 
against Alexander's authority broke out. They 
killed the officers who were in the city, and sum- 
moned the garrison to surrender. The garrison 
refused, and the Thebans besieged it. 

This outbreak against Alexander's authority 
was in a great measure the work of the great 
orator Demosthenes, who spared no exertions 
to arouse the southern states of Greece to re- 
sist Alexander's dominion. He especially ex- 
erted all the powers of his eloquence in Athens 
in the endeavor to bring over the Athenians to 
take sides against Alexander. 

While things were in this state — the The- 
bans having understood that Alexander had 
been killed at the north, and supposing that, at 
all events, if this report should not be true, he 
was, without doubt, still far away, involved in 






B.C. 335.] The Reaction. 67 

Sudden appearance of Alexander. He invests Thebes. 

contentions with the barbarian nations, from 
which it was not to be expected that he could 
be very speedily extricated — the whole city was 
suddenly thrown into consternation by the re- 
port that a large Macedonian army was ap- 
proaching from the north, with Alexander at its 
head, and that it was, in fact, close upon them. 

It was now, however, too late for the The- 
bans to repent of what they had done. They 
were far too deeply impressed with a conviction 
of the decision and energy of Alexander's char- 
acter, as manifested in the whole course of his 
proceedings since he began to reign, and espe- 
cially by his sudden reappearance among them 
so soon after this outbreak against his authori- 
ty, to imagine that there was now any hope for 
them except in determined and successful re- 
sistance. They shut themselves up, therefore, 
in their city, and prepared to defend themselves 
to the last extremity. 

Alexander advanced, and, passing round the 
city toward the southern side, established his 
head-quarters there, so as to cut off effectually 
all communication with Athens and the southern 
cities. He then extended his posts all around 
the place so as to invest it entirely. These prep- 
arations made, he paused before he commenced 



68 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

The Thebans refuse to surrender. Storming a city. 

the work of subduing the city, to give the in- 
habitants an opportunity to submit, if they 
would, without compelling him to resort to 
force. The conditions, however, which he im- 
posed were such that the Thebans thought it 
best to take their chance of resistance. They 
refused to surrender, and Alexander began to 
prepare for the onset. 

He was very soon ready, and with his char- 
acteristic ardor and energy he determined on 
attempting to carry the city at once by assault. 
Fortified cities generally require a siege, and 
sometimes a very long siege, before they can be 
subdued. The army within, sheltered behind 
the parapets of the walls, and standing there in 
a position above that of their assailants, have 
such great advantages in the contest that a long 
time often elapses before they can be compelled 
to surrender. The besiegers have to invest the 
city on all sides to cut off all supplies of provis- 
ions, and then, in those days, they had to con- 
struct engines to make a breach somewhere in 
the walls, through which an assaulting party 
could attempt to force their way in. 

The time for making an assault upon a be- 
sieged city depends upon the comparative 
strength of those within and without, and also, 

t 



B.C. 335.] The Reaction. o9 

Undermining. Malting a breach. Surrender. 

still more, on the ardor and resolution of the be- 
siegers. In modern warfare, an army, in in- 
vesting a fortified place, spends ordinarily a con- 
siderable time in burrowing their way along in 
trenches, half under ground, until they get near 
enough to plant their cannon where the balls 
can take effect upon some part of the wall. 
Then some time usually elapses before a breach 
is made, and the garrison is sufficiently weak- 
ened to render an assault advisable. When, 
however, the time at length arrives, the most 
bold and desperate portion of the army are des- 
ignated to lead the attack. Bundles of small 
branches of trees are provided to fill up ditches 
with, and ladders for mounting embankments 
and walls. The city, sometimes, seeing these 
preparations going on, and convinced that the 
assault will be successful, surrenders before it is 
made. When the besieged do thus surrender, 
they save themselves a vast amount of suffer- 
ing, for the carrying of a city by assault is per- 
haps the most horrible scene which the passions 
and crimes of men ever offer to the view of 
heaven. 

It is horrible, because the soldiers, exasperated 
to fury by the resistance which they meet with, 
nnd by the awful malignity of the passions al- 



70 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

Carrying a city by assault Scenes of horror. 

ways excited in the hour of battle, if they suc- 
ceed, burst suddenly into the precincts of do- 
mestic life, and find sometimes thousands of 
families — mothers, and children, and defense- 
less maidens — at the mercy of passions excited 
to phrensy. Soldiers, under such circumstan- 
ces, can not be restrained, and no imagination 
can conceive the horrors of the sacking of a city, 
carried by assault, after a protracted siege. Ti- 
gers do not spring upon their prey with greater 
ferocity than man springs, under such circum- 
stances, to the perpetration of every possible 
cruelty upon his fellow man. After an ordina- 
ry battle upon an open field, the conquerors have 
only men, armed like themselves, to wreak their 
vengeance upon. The scene is awful enough, 
however, here. But in carrying a city by storm, 
which takes place usually at an unexpected time, 
and often in the night, the maddened and victo- 
rious assaulters suddenly burst into the sacred 
scenes of domestic peace, and seclusion, and love 
— the very worst of men, filled with the worst 
of passions, stimulated by the resistance they 
have encountered, and licensed by their victory 
to give all these passions the fullest and most 
unrestricted gratification. To plunder, burn, 
destroy, and kill, are the lighter and more harm- 
less of the crimes they perpetrate. 



B.C. 335.] The Reaction. 71 

Thebes carried by assault. Great lose of life. 

Thebes was carried by assault. Alexander 
did not wait for the slow operations of a siege. 
He watched a favorable opportunity, and burst 
over and through the outer line of fortifications 
which defended the city. The attempt to do 
this was very desperate, and the loss of life great ; 
but it was triumphantly successful. The The- 
bans were driven back toward the inner wall, and 
began to crowd in, through the gates, into the 
city, in terrible confusion. The Macedonians 
were close upon them, and pursuers and pur- 
sued, struggling together, and trampling upon 
and killing each other as they went, flowed in, 
like a boiling and raging torrent which nothing 
could resist, through the open arch- way. 

It was impossible to close the gates. The 
whole Macedonian force were soon in full pos- 
session of the now defenseless houses, and for 
many hours screams, and wailings, and cries of 
horror and despair testified to the awful atrocity 
of the crimes attendant on the sacking of a city. 
At length the soldiery were restrained. Order 
was restored. The army retired to the posts 
assigned them, and Alexander began to delib- 
erate what he should do with the conquered 
town. 

He determined to destroy it — to offer, once for 



72 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

Thebes destroyed. The manner of doing it 

all, a terrible example of the consequences of 
rebellion against him. The case was not one, 
he considered, of the ordinary conquest of a foe. 
The states of Greece — Thebes with the rest — 
had once solemnly conferred upon him the au- 
thority against which the Thebans had now re- 
belled. They were traitors, therefore, in his 
judgment, not mere enemies, and he determined 
that the penalty should be utter destruction.^ 

But, in carrying this terrible decision into ef- 
fect, he acted in a manner so deliberate, dis- 

J 
criminating, and cautious, as to diminish very 

much the irritation and resentment which it 
would otherwise have caused, and to give it its 
full moral effect as a measure, not of angry re- 
sentment, but of calm and deliberate retribution 
—just and proper, according to the ideas of the 
time. In the first place, he released all the 
priests. Then, in respect to the rest of the pop- 
ulation, he discriminated carefully between those 
who had favored the rebellion and those who 
had been true to their allegiance to him. The 
latter were allowed to depart in safety. And if, 
in the case of any family, it could be shown that 
one individual had been on the Macedonian side, 
the single instance of fidelity outweighed the 
treason of the other members, and the whole 
familv was saved. 



B.C.335.] The Reaction. 73 

Alexander's moderation and forbearance. Family of Pindar spared. 

And the officers appointed to carry out these 
provisions were liberal in the interpretation and 
application of them, so as to save as many as 
there could be any possible pretext for saving. 
The descendants and family connections of Pin- 
dar, the celebrated poet, who has been already 
mentioned as having been born in Thebes, were 
all pardoned also, whichever side they may have 
taken in the contest. The truth was, that Al- 
exander, though he had the sagacity to see that 
he was placed in circumstances where prodig- 
ious moral effect in strengthening his position 
would be produced by an act of great severity, 
was swayed by so many generous impulses, 
which raised him above the ordinary excite- 
ments of irritation and revenge, that he had 
every desire to make the suffering as light, and 
to limit it by as narrow bounds, as the nature 
of the case would allow. He doubtless also had 
an instinctive feeling that the moral effect it- 
self of so dreadful a retribution as he was about 
to inflict upon the devoted city would be very 
much increased by forbearance and generosity, 
and by extreme regard for the security and pro- 
tection of those who had shown themselves his 
friends. 

After all these exceptions had been made, 






74 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

The number saved. Efforts of Demosthenes. 

and the persons to whom they applied had been 
dismissed, the rest of the population were sold 
into slavery, and then the city was utterly and 
entirely destroyed. The number thus sold was 
about thirty thousand, and six thousand had 
been killed in the assault and storming of the 
city. Thus Thebes was made a ruin and a 
desolation, and it remained so, a monument of 
Alexander's terrible energy and decision, for 
twenty years. 

The effect of the destruction of Thebes upon 
the other cities and states of Greece was what 
might have been expected. It came upon them 
like a thunder-bolt. Although Thebes was the 
only city which had openly revolted, there had 
been strong symptoms of disaffection in many 
other places. Demosthenes, who had been si- 
lent while Alexander was present in Greece, 
during his first visit there, had again been en- 
deavoring to arouse opposition to Macedonian 
ascendency, and to concentrate and bring out 
into action the influences which were hostile to 
Alexander. He said in his speeches that Al- 
exander was a mere boy, and that it was dis- 
graceful for such -cities as Athens, Sparta, and 
Thebes to submit to his sway. Alexander had 
heard of these things, and, as he was coming 



B.C. 335.] The Reaction. 75 

The boy proves to be a man. All disaffection subdued. 

down into Greece, through the Straits of Ther- 
mopylse, before the destruction of Thebes, he 
said, " They say I am a boy. I am coming to 
teach them that I am a man." 

He did teach them that he was a man. His 
unexpected appearance, when they imagined 
him entangled among the mountains and wilds 
of unknown regions in the north ; his sudden 
investiture of Thebes ; the assault ; the calm 
deliberations in respect to the destiny of the 
city, and the slow, cautious, discriminating, but 
inexorable energy with which the decision was 
carried into effect, all coming in such rapid suc- 
cession, impressed the Grecian commonwealth 
with the conviction that the personage they had 
to deal with was no boy in character, whatever 
might be his years. All symptoms of disaffec- 
tion against the rule of Alexander instantly dis- 
appeared, and did not soon revive again. 

Nor was this effect due entirely to the terror 
inspired by the retribution which had been vis- 
ited upon Thebes. All Greece was impress- 
ed with a new admiration for Alexander's char- 
acter as they witnessed these events, in which 
his impetuous energy, his cool and calm decis- 
ion, his forbearance, his magnanimity, and his 
faithfulness to his friends, were all so conspicu- 



76 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 335. 

Moral effect of the destruction of Thebes. 



ous. His pardoning the priests, whether they 
had been for him or against him, made every 
friend of religion incline to his favor. The same 
interposition in behalf of the poet's family and 
descendants spoke directly to the heart of every 
poet, orator, historian, and philosopher through- 
out the country, and tended to make all the 
lovers of literature his friends. His magnanim- 
ity, also, in deciding that one single friend of his 
in a family should save that family, instead of 
ordaining, as a more short-sighted conqueror 
would have done, that a single enemy should 
condemn it, must have awakened a strong feel- 
ing of gratitude and regard in the hearts of all 
who could appreciate fidelity to friends and gen- 
erosity of spirit. Thus, as the news of the de- 
struction of Thebes, and the selling of so large 
a portion of the inhabitants into slavery, spread 
over the land, its effect was to turn over so 
great a part of the population to a feeling of 
admiration of Alexander's character, and confi- 
dence in his extraordinary powers, as to leave 
only a small minority disposed to take sides 
with the punished rebels, or resent the destruc- 
tion of the city. 

From Thebes Alexander proceeded to the 
southward. Deputations from the cities were 



B.C . 335.] The Rbactiu n . 77 

Alexander returns to Macedon. Celebrates his victories. 

sent to him, congratulating him on his victories, 
and offering their adhesion to his cause. His 
influence and ascendency seemed firmly estab- 
lished now in the country of the Greeks, and 
in due time he returned to Macedon, and cele- 
brated at iEgse, which was at this time his 
capital, the establishment and confirmation of 
his power, by games, shows, spectacles, illumi- 
nations, and sacrifices to the gods, offered on a 
scale of the greatest pomp and magnificence. 
He was now ready to turn his thoughts toward 
the long-projected plan of the expedition into 
Asia. 



78 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

The expedition into Asia. Debates upon it 



Chapter IV. 
Crossing the Hellespont. 

ON Alexander's arrival in Macedon, he im- 
mediately began to turn his attention to 
the subject of the invasion of Asia. He was 
full of ardor and enthusiasm to carry this pro- 
ject into effect. Considering his extreme youth , 
and the captivating character of the enterprise, 
it is strange that he should have exercised so 
much deliberation and caution as his conduct 
did really evince. He had now settled every 
thing in the most thorough manner, both with- 
in his dominions and among the nations on his 
borders, and, as it seemed to him, the time had 
come when he was to commence active prepa- 
rations for the great Asiatic campaign. 

He brought the subject before his ministers 
and counselors. They, in general, concurred 
with him in opinion. There were, however, 
two who were in doubt, or rather who were, in 
fact, opposed to the plan, though they expressed 
their non-concurrence in the form of doubts. 
These two persons were Antipater and Par- 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 79 

Objections of Antipater and Parmenio. Their foresight. 

menio, the venerable officers who have been al- 
ready mentioned as having served Philip so 
faithfully, and as transferring, on the death of 
the father, their attachment and allegiance at 
once to the son. 

Antipater and Parmenio represented to Al- 
exander that if he were to go to Asia at that 
time, he would put to extreme hazard all the in- 
terests of Macedon. As he had no family, there 
was, of course, no direct heir to the crown, and, 
in case of any misfortune happening by which 
his life should be lost, Macedon would become 
at once the prey of contending factions, which 
would immediately arise, each presenting its 
own candidate for the vacant throne. The sa- 
gacity and foresight which these statesmen 
evinced in these suggestions were abundantly 
confirmed in the end. Alexander did die in 
Asia, his vast kingdom at once fell into pieces j 
and it was desolated with internal commotions 
and civil wars for a long period after his death. 

Parmenio and Antipater accordingly advised 
the king to postpone his expedition. They ad- 
vised him to seek a wife among the princesses 
of Greece, and then to settle down quietly to 
the duties of domestic life, and to the govern- 
ment of his kingdom for a few years; then, 



80 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Alexander decides to go. Preparations. 

when every thing should have become settled 
and consolidated in Greece, and his family was 
established in the hearts of his countrymen, he 
could leave Macedon more safely. Public af- 
fairs would go on more steadily while he lived, 
and, in case of his death, the crown would de- 
scend, with comparatively little danger of civil 
commotion, to his heir. 

But Alexander was fully decided against any 
such policy as this. He resolved to embark in 
the great expedition at once. He concluded to 
make Antipater his vicegerent in Macedon dur- 
ing his absence, and to take Parmenio with him 
into Asia. It will be remembered that Antipa- 
ter was the statesman and Parmenio the gen- 
eral ; that is, Antipater had been employed more 
by Philip in civil, and Parmenio in military af- 
fairs, though in those days every body who was 
in public life was more or less a soldier. 

Alexander left an army of ten or twelve thou- 
sand men with Antipater for the protection of 
Macedon. He organized another army of about 
thirty-five thousand to go with him. This was 
considered a very small army for such a vast 
undertaking. One or two hundred years before 
this time, Darius, a king of Persia, had invaded 
Greece with an army of five hundred thousand 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 81 

Description of Thrace. Vale of Tempe. Olympus. 

men, and yet he had been defeated and driven 
back, and now Alexander was undertaking to 
retaliate with a great deal less than one tenth 
part of the force. 

Of Alexander's army of thirty-five thousand, 
thirty thousand were foot soldiers, and about 
five thousand were horse. More than half the 
whole army was from Macedon. The remain- 
der was from the southern states of Greece. A 
large body of the horse was from Thessaly, which, 
as will be seen on the map,* was a country south 
of Macedon. It was, in fact, one broad expand- 
ed valley, with mountains all around. Tor- 
rents descended from these mountains, forming 
streams which flowed in currents more and more 
deep and slow as they descended into the plains, 
and combining at last into one central river, 
which flowed to the eastward, and escaped from 
the environage of mountains through a most 
celebrated dell called the Vale of Tempe. On 
the north of this valley is Olympus, and on the 
south the two twin mountains Pelion and Ossa. 
There was an ancient story of a war in Thes- 
saly between the giants who were imagined to 
have lived there in very early days, and the 
gods. The giants piled Pelion upon Ossa to 

* At the commencement of Chapter hi. 

F 



82 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Pelion and Ossa. Alexander's generosity. 

enable them to get up to heaven in their assault 
upon their celestial enemies. The fable has 
led to a proverb which prevails in every lan- 
guage in Europe, by which all extravagant and 
unheard-of exertions to accomplish an end is 
said to be a piling of Pelion upon Ossa. 

Thessaly was famous for its horses and its 
horsemen. The slopes of the mountains fur- 
nished the best of pasturage for the rearing of 
the animals, and the plains below afforded broad 
and open fields for training and exercising the 
bodies of cavalry formed by means of them. 
The Thessalian horse were famous throughout 
all Greece. Bucephalus was reared in Thessaly. 

Alexander, as king of Macedon, possessed ex- 
tensive estates and revenues, which were his 
own personal property, and were independent 
of the revenues of the state. Before setting 
out on his expedition, he apportioned these 
among his great officers and generals, both 
those who were to go and those who were to 
remain. He evinced great generosity in this ; 
but it was, after all, the spirit of ambition, more 
than that of generosity, which led him to do it. 
The two great impulses which animated him 
were the pleasure of doing great deeds, and the 
fame and glorv of having done them. These 



B.C. 334] The Hellespont. 83 

Love of money. Religious sacrifices and spectacles. 

two principles are very distinct in their nature, 
though often conjoined. They were paramount 
and supreme in Alexander's character, and ev- 
ery other human principle was subordinate to 
them. Money was to him, accordingly, only a 
means to enable him to accomplish these ends. 
His distributing his estates and revenues in the 
manner above described was only a judicious ap- 
propriation of the money to the promotion of the 
great ends he wished to attain ; it was expendi- 
ture, not gift. It answered admirably the end 
he had in view. His friends all looked upon 
him as extremely generous and self-sacrificing. 
They asked him what he had reserved for him- 
self. " Hope," said Alexander. 

At length all things were ready, and Alexan- 
der began to celebrate the religious sacrifices, 
spectacles, and shows which, in those days, al- 
ways preceded great undertakings of this kind. 
There was a great ceremony in honor of Jupi- 
ter and the nine Muses, which had long been 
celebrated in Macedon as a sort of annual na- 
tional festival. Alexander now caused great 
preparations for this festival. 

In the days of the Greeks, public worship and 
public amusement were combined in one and 
the same series of spectacles and ceremonies. 



84 Alexander the Great. [B.C.334. 

Ancient forms of worship. Religious instincts. 

All worship was a theatrical show, and almost 
all shows were forms of worship. The religious 
instincts of the human heart demand some sort 
of sympathy and aid, real or imaginary, from 
the invisible world, in great and solemn under- 
takings, and in every momentous crisis in its 
history. It is true that Alexander's soldiers, 
about to leave their homes to go to another 
quarter of the globe, and into scenes of danger 
and death from which it was very improbable 
that many of them would ever return, had no 
other celestial protection to look up to than the 
spirits of ancient heroes, who, they imagined, 
had, somehow or other, found their final home 
in a sort of heaven among the summits of the 
mountains, where they reigned, in some sense, 
over human affairs ; but this, small as it seems 
to us, was a great deal to them. They felt, 
when sacrificing to these gods, that they were 
invoking their presence and sympathy. These 
deities having been engaged in the same enter- 
prises themselves, and animated with the same 
hopes and fears, the soldiers imagined that the 
semi-human divinities invoked by them would 
take an interest in their dangers, and rejoice in 
their success. 

The Muses, in honor of whom, as well as Ju- 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 85 

The nine Muses. Festivities in honor of Jupiter. 

piter, this great Macedonian festival was held, 
were nine singing and dancing maidens, beau- 
tiful in countenance and form, and enchanting- 
ly graceful in all their movements. They came, 
the ancients imagined, from Thrace, in the 
north, and went first to Jupiter upon Mount 
Olympus, who made them goddesses. After- 
ward they went southward, and spread over 
Greece, making their residence, at last, in a 
palace upon Mount Parnassus, which will be 
found upon the map just north of the Gulf of 
Corinth and west of Boeotia. They were wor- 
shiped all over Greece and Italy as the goddesses 
of music and dancing. In later times particu- 
lar sciences and arts were assigned to them re- 
spectively, as history, astronomy, tragedy, &c, 
though there was no distinction of this kind in 
early days. 

The festivities in honor of Jupiter and the 
Muses were continued in Macedon nine days, 
a number corresponding with that of the danc- 
ing goddesses. Alexander made very magnifi- 
'cent preparations for the celebration on this oc- 
casion. He had a tent made, under which, it 
is said, a hundred tables could be spread ; and 
here he entertained, day after day, an enormous 
company of princes, potentates, and generals. 



86 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Spectacles and shows. Alexander's route. 

He offered sacrifices to such of the gods as he 
supposed it would please the soldiers to imagine 
that they had propitiated. Connected with 
these sacrifices and feastings, there were ath- 
letic and military spectacles and shows — races 
and wrestlings — and mock contests, with blunt- 
ed spears. All these things encouraged and 
quickened the ardor and animation of the sol- 
diers. It aroused their ambition to distinguish 
themselves by their exploits, and gave them an 
increased and stimulated desire for honor and 
fame. Thus inspirited by new desires for hu- 
man praise, and trusting in the sympathy and 
protection of powers which were all that they 
conceived of as divine, the army prepared to set 
forth from their native land, bidding it a long, 
and, as it proved to most of them, a final farewell. 
By following the course of Alexander's expe- 
dition upon the map at the commencement of 
chapter iii., it will be seen that his route lay 
first along the northern coasts of the ^Egean 
Sea. He was to pass from Europe into Asia 
by crossing the Hellespont between Sestos and 
Abydos. He sent a fleet of a hundred and fifty 
galleys, of three banks of oars each, over the 
JEgean Sea, to land at Sestos, and be ready to 
transport his army across the straits. The ar- 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 87 

Alexander begins his march. Romantic adventure. 

my, in the mean time, marched by land. They 
had to cross the rivers which flow into the iEge- 
an Sea on the northern side ; but as these rivers 
were in Macedon, and no opposition was encoun- 
tered upon the banks of them, there was no se- 
rious difficulty in effecting the passage. When 
they reached Sestos, they found the fleet ready 
there, awaiting their arrival. 

It is very strikingly characteristic of the min- 
gling of poetic sentiment and enthusiasm with 
calm and calculating business efficiency, which 
shone conspicuously so often in Alexander's ca- 
reer, that when he arrived at Sestos, and found 
that the ships were there, and the army safe, 
and that there- was no enemy to oppose his land- 
ing on the Asiatic shore, he left Parmenio to 
oonduct the transportation of the troops across 
the water, while he himself went away in a 
single galley on an excursion of sentiment and 
romantic adventure. A little south of the place 
where his army was to cross, there lay, on the 
Asiatic shore, an extended plain, on which were 
the ruins of Troy. Now Troy was the city 
which was the scene of Homer's poems — those 
poems which had excited so much interest in 
the mind of Alexander in his early years ; and 
he determined, instead of crossing the Helles- 



88 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 



The plain of Troy. 



Tenedos. 



Mount Ida. 



The Scamander. 




The Plain of Troy. 



pont with the main body of his army, to pro 
ceed southward in a single galley, and land, 
himself, on the Asiatic shore, on the very spot 
which the romantic imagination of his youth 
had dwelt upon so often and so long. 

Troy was situated upon a plain. Homer de- 
scribes an island off the coast, named Tenedos, 
and a mountain near called Mount Ida. There 
was also a river called the Scamander. The 
island, the mountain, and the river remain, pre- 
serving their original names to the present day, 



B.C.334.] The Hellespont. 89 

The Trojan war. Dream of Priam's wile. 

except that the river is now called the Mender ; 
but, although various vestiges of ancient ruins 
are found scattered about the plain, no spot 
can be identified as the site of the city. Some 
scholars have maintained that there probably 
never was such a city ; that Homer invented 
the whole, there being nothing real in all that he 
describes except the river, the mountain, and 
the island. His story is, however, that there 
was a great and powerful city there, with a 
kingdom attached to it, and that this city was 
besieged by the Greeks for ten years, at" the end 
of which time it was taken and destroyed. 

The story of the origin of this war is substan- 
tially this. Priam was king of Troy. His wife, 
a short time before her son was born, dreamed 
that at his birth the child turned into a torch 
and set the palace on fire. She told this dream 
to the soothsayers, and asked them what it 
meant. They said it must mean that her son 
would be the means of bringing some terrible 
calamities and disasters upon the family. The 
mother was terrified, and, to avert these calam- 
ities, gave the child to a slave as soon as it was 
born, and ordered him to destroy it. The slave 
pitied the helpless babe, and, not liking to de- 
stroy it with his own hand, carried it to Mount 
Ida, and left it there in the forests to die. 



90 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Exposure of Paris. The apple of discord. 

A she bear, roaming through the woods, found 
the child, and, experiencing a feeling of mater- 
nal tenderness for it, she took care of it, and 
reared it as if it had been her own offspring. 
The child was found, at last, by some shepherds 
who lived upon the mountain, and they adopted 
it as their own, robbing the brute mother of her 
charge. They named the boy Paris. He grew 
in strength and beauty, and gave early and ex- 
traordinary proofs of courage and energy, as if 
he had imbibed some of the qualities of his fierce 
foster mother with the milk she gave him. He 
was so remarkable for athletic beauty and man- 
ly courage, that he not only easily won the heart 
of a nymph of Mount Ida, named CEnone, whom 
he married, but he also attracted the attention 
of the goddesses in the heavens. 

At length these goddesses had a dispute which 
they agreed to refer to him. The origin of the 
dispute was this. There was a wedding among 
them, and one of them, irritated at not having 
been invited, had a golden apple made, on which 
were engraved the words, " To be given to the 
most beautiful." She threw this apple into 
the assembly : her object was to make them 
quarrel for it. In fact, she was herself the god- 
dess of discord, and, independently of her cause 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 91 

The dispute about the apple. Decided in favor of Venus. 

of pique in this case, she loved to promote dis- 
putes. It is in allusion to this ancient tale that 
any subject of dispute, brought up unnecessari- 
ly among friends, is called to this day an apple 
of discord. 

Three of the goddesses claimed the apple, 
each insisting that she was more beautiful than 
the others, and this was the dispute which they 
agreed to refer to Paris. They accordingly ex- 
hibited themselves before him in the mountains, 
that he might look at them and decide. They 
did not, however, seem willing, either of them, 
to trust to an impartial decision of the question, 
but each offered the judge a bribe to induce him 
to decide in her favor. One promised him a 
kingdom, another great fame, and the third, 
Venus, promised him the most beautiful wom- 
an in the world for his wife. He decided in fa- 
vor of Venus ; whether because she was justly 
entitled to the decision, or through the influence 
of the bribe, the story does not say. 

All this time Paris remained on the mount- 
ain, a simple shepherd and herdsman, not know- 
ing his relationship to the monarch who reigned 
over the city and kingdom on the plain below. 
King Priam, however, about this time, in some 
games which he was celebrating, offered, as a 



92 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

The story of the bull. Paris restored to his parents. 

prize to the victor, the finest bull which could 
be obtained on Mount Ida. On making exam- 
ination, Paris was found to have the finest bull, 
and the king, exercising the despotic power 
which kings in those days made no scruple of 
assuming in respect to helpless peasants, took 
it away. Paris was very indignant. It hap- 
pened, however, that a short time afterward 
there was another opportunity to contend for 
the same bull, and Paris, disguising himself as 
a prince, appeared in the lists, conquered every 
competitor, and bore away the bull again to his 
home in the fastnesses of the mountain. 

In consequence of this his appearance at 
court, the daughter of Priam, whose name was 
Cassandra, became acquainted with him, and, 
inquiring into his story, succeeded in ascertain- 
ing that he was her brother, the long-lost child, 
that had been supposed to be put to death. King 
Priam was convinced by the evidence which she 
brought forward, and Paris was brought home 
to his father's house. After becoming estab- 
lished in his new position, he remembered the 
promise of Venus that he should have the most 
beautiful woman in the world for his wife, and 
he began, accordingly, to inquire where he could 
find her. 




Pakis and Helen. 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 95 

Abduction of Helen. Destruction of Troy. 

There was in Sparta, one of the cities of 
Southern Greece, a certain king Menelans, who 
had a youthful bride named Helen, who was 
famed far and near for her beauty. Paris came 
to the conclusion that she was the most lovely 
woman in the world, and that he was entitled, 
in virtue of Venus's promise, to obtain posses- 
sion of her, if he could do so by any means 
whatever. He accordingly made a journey into 
Greece, visited Sparta, formed an acquaintance 
with Helen, persuaded her to abandon her hus- 
band and her duty, and elope with him to Troy. 

Menelaus was indignant at this outrage. He 
called on all Greece to take up arms and join 
him in the attempt to recover his bride. They 
responded to this demand. They first sent to 
Priam, demanding that he should restore Helen 
to her husband. Priam refused to do so, tak- 
ing part with his son. The Greeks then raised 
a fleet and an army, and came to the plains of 
Troy, encamped before the city, and persevered 
for ten long years in besieging it, when at length 
it was taken and destroyed. 

These stories relating to the origin of the war, 
however, marvelous and entertaining as they 
are, were not the points which chiefly interest- 
ed the mind of Alexander. The portions of Ho- 



96 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Homer's writings. Achilles. The Styx. 

mer's narratives which most excited his enthu- 
siasm were those relating to the characters of 
the heroes who fought, on one side and on the 
other, at the siege, their various adventures, 
and the delineations of their motives and prin- 
ciples of conduct, and the emotions and excite- 
ments they experienced in the various circum- 
stances in which they were placed. Homer de- 
scribed with great beauty and force the work- 
ings of ambition, of resentment, of pride, of ri- 
valry, and all those other impulses of the hu- 
man heart which would excite and control the 
action of impetuous men in the circumstances 
in which his heroes were placed. 

Each one of the heroes whose history and ad- 
ventures he gives, possessed a well-marked and 
striking character, and differed in temperament 
and action from the rest. Achilles was one. 
He was fiery, impetuous, and implacable in 
character, fierce and merciless ; and, though 
perfectly undaunted and fearless, entirely des- 
titute of magnanimity. There was a river call- 
ed the Styx, the waters of which were said to 
have the property of making any one invulner- 
able. The mother of Achilles dipped him into 
it in his infancy, holding him by the heel. The 
heel, not having been immersed, was the only 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 97 

Character of Achilles. Agamemnon. 




Achilles. 



part which could be wounded. Thus he was safe 
in battle, and was a terrible warrior. He, how- 
ever, quarreled with his comrades and withdrew 
from their cause on slight pretexts, and then be- 
came reconciled again, influenced by equally 
frivolous reasons. 

Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of 
the Greek army. After a certain victory, by 
which some captives were taken, and were to 
be divided among the victors, Agamemnon was 
obliged to restore one, a noble lady, who had 
fallen to his share, and he took away the one 
that had been assigned to Achilles to replace 
her. This incensed Achilles, and he withdrew 
G 



98 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 33 

Death of Patroclus. Hector slain by Achilles. 

for a long time from the contest ; and, in conse- 
quence of his absence, the Trojans gained great 
and continued victories against the Greeks. 
For a long time nothing could induce Achilles 
to return. 

At length, however, though he would not go 
himself, he allowed his intimate friend, whose 
name was Patroclus, to take his armor and go 
into battle. Patroclus was at first successful, 
but was soon killed by Hector, the brother of 
Paris. This aroused anger and a spirit of re- 
venge in the mind of Achilles. He gave up his 
quarrel with Agamemnon and returned to the 
combat. He did not remit his exertions till he 
had slain Hector, and then he expressed his bru- 
tal exultation, and satisfied his revenge, by drag- 
ging the dead body at the wheels of his chariot 
around the walls of the city. He then sold the 
body to the distracted father for a ransom. 

It was such stories as these, which are re- 
lated in the poems of Homer with great beauty 
and power, that had chiefly interested the mind 
of Alexander. The subjects interested him ; 
the accounts of the contentions, the rivalries, 
the exploits of these warriors, the delineations 
of their character and springs of action, and the 
narrations of the various incidents and events to 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 99 

Alexander proceeds to Troy. Neptune. 

which such a war gave rise, were all calculated 
to captivate the imagination of a young mar- 
tial hero. 

Alexander accordingly resolved that his first 
landing in Asia should be at Troy. He left his 
army under the charge of Parmenio, to cross 
from Sestos to Abydos, while he himself set 
forth in a single galley to proceed to the south- 
ward. There was a port on the Trojan shore 
where the Greeks had been accustomed to dis- 
embark, and he steered his course for it. He 
had a bull on board his galley which he was 
going to offer as a sacrifice to Neptune when 
half way from shore to shore. 

- Neptune was the god of the sea. It is true 
that the Hellespont is not the open ocean, but 
it is an arm of the sea, and thus belonged prop- 
erly to the dominions which the ancients as- 
signed to the divinity of the waters. Neptune 
was conceived of by the ancients as a monarch 
dwelling on the seas or upon the coasts, and 
riding over the waves seated in a great shell, 
or sometimes in a chariot, drawn by dolphins or 
sea-horses. In these excursions he was attend- 
ed by a train of sea-gods and nymphs, who, half 
floating, half swimming, followed him over the 
billows. Instead of a scepter Neptune carried 



34. 



100 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 3 

Landing of Alexander. Sacrifices to the goda. 

a trident. A trident was a sort of three-prong- 
ed harpoon, such as was used in those days by 
the fishermen of the Mediterranean. It was 
from this circumstance, probably, that it was 
chosen as the badge of authority for the god of 
the sea. 

Alexander took the helm, and steered the 
galley with his own hands toward the Asiatic 
shore. Just before he reached the land, he took 
his place upon the prow, and threw a javelin at 
the shore as he approached it, a symbol of the 
spirit of defiance and hostility with which he 
advanced to the frontiers of the eastern world. 
He was also the first to land. After disembark- 
ing his company, he offered sacrifices to the 
gods, and then proceeded to visit the places 
which had been the scenes of the events which 
Homer had described. 

Homer had written five hundred years before 
the time of Alexander, and there is some doubt 
whether the ruins and the remains of cities 
which our hero found there were really the 
scenes of the narratives which had interested 
him so deeply. He, however, at any rate, be- 
lieved them to be so, and he was filled with en- 
thusiasm and pride as he wandered among them. 
He seems to have been most interested in the 



B.C. 334.] The Hellespont. 101 

Alexander proceeds on his march. Lampsacus. 

character of Achilles, and he said that he en- 
vied him his happy lot in having such a friend 
as Patroclus to help him perform his exploits, 
and such a poet as Homer to celebrate them. 

After completing his visit upon the plain of 
Troy, Alexander moved toward the northeast 
with the few men who had accompanied him in 
his single galley. In the mean time Parmenio 
had crossed safely, with the main body of the 
army, from Sestos to Abydos. Alexander over- 
took them on their march, not far from the place 
of their landing. To the northward of this place, 
on the left of the line of march which Alexander 
was taking, was the city of Lampsacus. 

Now a large portion of Asia Minor, although 
for the most part under the dominion of Persia, 
had been in a great measure settled by Greeks, 
and, in previous wars between the two nations, 
the various cities had been in possession, some- 
times of one power and sometimes of the other. 
In these contests the city of Lampsacus had 
incurred the high displeasure of the Greeks by 
rebelling, as they said, on one occasion, against 
them. Alexander determined to destroy it as 
he passed. The inhabitants were aware of this 
intention, and sent an embassador to Alexander 
to implore his mercy. When the embassador 



102 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334 

Alexander spares Lampsacus. Arrival at the Granicus. 

approached, Alexander, knowing his errand, ut- 
tered a declaration in which he bound himself 
by a solemn oath not to grant the request he 
was about to make. "I have come," said the 
embassador, " to implore you to destroy Lamp- 
sacus." Alexander, pleased with the readiness 
of the embassador in giving his language such 
a sudden turn, and perhaps influenced by his 
oath, spared the city. 

He was now fairly in Asia. The Persian 
forces were gathering to attack him, but so un- 
expected and sudden had been his invasion that 
they were not prepared to meet him at his ar- 
rival, and he advanced without opposition till 
he reached the banks of the little river Granicus. 



B.C.334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 103 

Alexander hemmed in by Mount Ida and the Granicus. 



Chapter V. 
Campaign in Asia Minor. 

ALTHOUGH Alexander had landed safely 
on the Asiatic shore, the way was not yet 
fairly open for him to advance into the interior 
of the country. He was upon a sort of plain, 
which was separated from the territory beyond 
by natural barriers. On the south was the 
range of lofty land called Mount Ida. From 
the northeastern slopes of this mountain there 
descended a stream which flowed north into the 
sea, thus hemming Alexander's army in. He 
must either scale the mountain or cross the 
river before he could penetrate into the in- 
terior. 

He thought it would be easiest to cross the 
river. It is very difficult to get a large body 
of horsemen and of heavy-armed soldiers, with 
all their attendants and baggage, over high ele- 
vations of land. This was the reason why the 
army turned to the northward after landing 
upon the Asiatic shore. Alexander thought 
the Granicus less of an obstacle than Mount 



104 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 



The Graniciia. Prodromi 




Ida. It was not a large stream, and was easi- 
ly fordable. 

It was the custom in those days, as it is now, 
when armies are marching, to send forward 
small bodies of men in every direction to ex- 
plore the roads, remove obstacles, and discover 
sources of danger. These men are called, in 
modern times, scouts ; in Alexander's day, and 
in the Greek language, they were called pro- 
dromi, which means forerunners. It is the 
duty of these pioneers to send messengers back 



B.C. 334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 105 

.Alexander stopped at the Granicus. Council called. 

continually to the main body of the army, in- 
forming the officers of every thing important 
which comes under their observation. 

In this case, when the army was gradually 
drawing near to the river, the prodromi came 
in with the news that they had been to the riv- 
er, and found the whole opposite shore, at the 
place of crossing, lined with Persian troops, col- 
lected there to dispute the passage. The army 
continued their advance, while Alexander called 
the leading generals around him, to consider 
what was to be done. 

Parmenio recommended that they should not 
attempt to pass the river immediately. The 
Persian army consisted chiefly of cavalry. 
Now cavalry, though very terrible as an enemy 
on the field of battle by day, are peculiarly ex- 
posed and defenseless in an encampment by 
night. The horses are scattered, feeding or at 
rest. The arms of the men are light, and they 
are not accustomed to fighting on foot ; and on 
a sudden incursion of an enemy at midnight 
into their camp, their horses and their horse- 
manship are alike useless, and they fall an easy 
prey to resolute invaders. Parmenio thought, 
therefore, that the Persians would not dare to 
rer.ain and encamp many days in the -vicinity 



106 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Alexander resolves to advance. His motives. 

of Alexander's army, and that, accordingly, if 
they waited a little, the enemy would retreat, 
and Alexander could then cross the river with- 
out incurring the danger of a battle. 

But Alexander was unwilling to adopt any 
such policy. He felt confident that his army 
was courageous and strong enough to march on, 
directly through the river, ascend the bank upon 
the other side, and force their way through all 
the opposition which the Persians could make. 
He knew, too, that if this were done it would 
create a strong sensation throughout the whole 
country, impressing every one with a sense of 
the energy and power of the army which he 
was conducting, and would thus tend to intimi- 
date the enemy, and facilitate all future opera- 
tions. But this was not all ; he had a more 
powerful motive still for wishing to march right 
on, across the river, and force his way through 
the vast bodies of cavalry on the opposite shore, 
and this was the pleasure of performing the ex- 
ploit. 

Accordingly, as the army advanced to the 
banks, they maneuvered to form in order of bat- 
tle, and prepared to continue their march as if 
there were no obstacle to oppose them. The 
general order of battle of the Macedonian army 






B.C.334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 107 

The Macedonian phalanx. Its organization. 

was this. There was a certain body of troops, 
armed and organized in a peculiar manner, call- 
ed the Phalanx. This body was placed in the 
center. The men composing it were very heav- 
ily armed. They had shields upon the left arm, 
and they carried spears sixteen feet long, and 
pointed with iron, which they held firmly in 
their two hands, with the points projecting far 
before them. The men were arranged in lines, 
one behind the other, and all facing the enemy 
— sixteen lines, and a thousand in each hne, or, 
as it is expressed in military phrase, a thousand 
in rank and sixteen in file, so that the phalanx 
contained sixteen thousand men. 

The spears were so long that when the men 
stood in close order, the rear ranks being brought 
up near to those before them, the points of the 
spears of eight or ten of the ranks projected in 
front, forming a bristling wall of points of steel, 
each one of which was held in its place by the 
strong arms of an athletic and well- trained sol- 
dier. This wall no force which could in those 
days be brought against it could penetrate. 
Men, horses, elephants, every thing that at- 
tempted to rush upon it, rushed only to their own 
destruction. Every spear, feeling the impulse 
of the vigorous arms which held it, seemed to 



108 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Formidable character of the phalanx. Is irresistible. 

be alive, and darted into its enemy, when an en- 
emy was at hand, as if it felt itself the fierce 
hostility which directed it. If the enemy re- 
mained at a distance, and threw javelins or darts 
at the phalanx, they fell harmless, stopped by 
the shields which the soldiers wore upon the 
left arm, and which were held in such a man- 
ner as to form a system of scales, which cover- 
ed and protected the whole mass, and made the 
men almost invulnerable. The phalanx was 
thus, when only defending itself and in a state 
of rest, an army and a fortification all in one, 
and it was almost impregnable. But when it 
took an aggressive form, put itself in motion, 
and advanced to an attack, it was infinitely 
more formidable. It became then a terrible 
monster, covered with scales of brass, from be- 
neath which there projected forward ten thou- 
sand living, darting points of iron. It advanc- 
ed deliberately and calmly, but with a prodig- 
ious momentum and force. There was nothing 
human in its appearance at all. It was a huge 
animal, ferocious, dogged, stubborn, insensible 
to pain, knowing no fear, and bearing down with 
resistless and merciless destruction upon every 
thing that came in its way. The phalanx was 
the center and soul of Alexander's army. Pow- 



B.C.334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 109 

Divisions of the phalanx. Its position in battle. 

erful and impregnable as it was, however, in 
ancient days, it would be helpless and defense- 
less on a modern battle-field. Solid balls of 
iron, flying through the air with a velocity 
which makes them invisible, would tear their 
way through the pikes and the shields, and the 
bodies of the men who bore them, without even 
feeling the obstruction. 

The phalanx was subdivided into brigades, 
regiments, and battalions, and regularly officer- 
ed. In marching, it was separated into -these 
its constituent parts, and sometimes in battle it 
acted in divisions. It was stationed in the cen- 
ter of the army on the field, and on the two 
sides of it were bodies of cavalry and foot sol- 
diers, more lightly armed than the soldiers of 
the phalanx, who could accordingly move with 
more alertness and speed, and carry their ac- 
tion readily wherever it might be called for. 
Those troops on the sides were called the wings. 
Alexander himself was accustomed to command 
one wing and Parmenio the other, while the 
phalanx crept along slowly but terribly between. 

The army, thus arranged and organized, ad- 
vanced to the river. It was a broad and shal- 
low stream. The Persians had assembled in 
vast numbers on the opposite shore. Some his- 



110 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Battle of the Uranicus. Defeat of the Persians. 

torians say there were one hundred thousand 
men, others say two hundred thousand, and oth- 
ers six hundred thousand. However this may 
be, there is no doubt their numbers were vastly 
superior to those of Alexander's army, which it 
will be recollected was less than forty thousand. 
There was a narrow plain on the opposite side 
of the river, next to the shore, and a range of 
hills beyond. The Persian cavalry covered the 
plain, and were ready to dash upon the Mace- 
donian troops the moment they should emerge 
from the water and attempt to ascend the bank. 

The army, led by Alexander, descended into 
the stream, and moved on through the water. 
They encountered the onset of their enemies on 
the opposite shore. A terrible and a protracted 
struggle ensued, but the coolness, courage, and 
strength of Alexander's army carried the day. 
The Persians were driven back, the Greeks ef- 
fected their landing, reorganized and formed on 
the shore, and the Persians, finding that all was 
lost, fled in all directions. 

Alexander himself took a conspicuous and a 
very active part in the contest. He was easily 
recognized on the field of battle by his dress, and 
by a white plume which he wore in his helmet. 
He exposed himself to the most imminent dan- 



B.C. 334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. Ill 

Alexander's prowess. His imminent danger. 

ger. At one time, when desperately engaged 
with a troop of horse, which had galloped down 
upon him, a Persian horseman aimed a blow at 
his head with a sword. Alexander saved his 
head from the blow, but it took off his plume 
and a part of his helmet. Alexander immedi- 
ately thrust his antagonist through the body. 
At the same moment, another horseman, on an- 
other side, had his sword raised, and would have 
killed Alexander before he could have turned to 
defend himself, had no help intervened ; but 
just at this instant a third combatant, one of 
Alexander's friends, seeing the danger, brought 
down so terrible a blow upon the shoulder of 
this second assailant as to separate his arm from 
his body. 

Such are the stories that are told. They 
may have been literally and fully true, or they 
may have been exaggerations of circumstances 
somewhat resembling them which really occur- 
red, or they may have been fictitious altogeth- 
er. Great generals, like other great men, have 
often the credit of many exploits which they 
never perform. It is the special business of 
poets and historians to magnify and embellish 
the actions of the great, and this art was un- 
derstood as well in ancient days as it is now. 



112 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 



Results of the battle. Spoils sent to Greece. 

We must remember, too, in reading the ac- 
counts of these transactions, that it is only the 
Greek side of the story that we hear. The 
Persian narratives have not come down to us. 

At any rate, the Persian army was defeated, 
and that, too, without the assistance of the phal- 
anx. The horsemen and the light troops were 
alone engaged. The phalanx could not be form- 
ed, nor could it act in such a position. The 
men, on emerging from the water, had to climb 
up the banks, and rush on to the attack of an 
enemy consisting of squadrons of horse ready to 
dash at once upon them. 

The Persian army was defeated and driven 
away. Alexander did not pursue them. He 
felt that he had struck a very heavy blow. The 
news of this defeat of the Persians would go 
with the speed of the wind all over Asia Minor, 
and operate most powerfully in his favor. He 
sent home to Greece an account of the victory, 
and with the account he forwarded three hun- 
dred suits of armor, taken from the Persian 
horsemen killed on the field. These suits of ar- 
mor were to be hung up in the Parthenon, a 
great temple at Athens ; the most conspicuous 
position for them, perhaps, which all Europe 
could afford. 



B.C.334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 113 

Memnon overruled. Alexander visits the wounded. 

The name of the Persian general who com- 
manded at the battle of the Granicus was Mem- 
non. He had been opposed to the plan of haz- 
arding a battle. Alexander had come to Asia 
with no provisions and no money. He had re- 
lied on being able to sustain his army by his 
victories. Memnon, therefore, strongly urged 
that the Persians should retreat slowly, carry- 
ing off all the valuable property, and destroying 
all that could not be removed, taking especial 
care to leave no provisions behind them. In 
this way he thought that the army of Alexan- 
der would be reduced by privation and want, 
and would, in the end, fall an easy prey. His 
opinion was, however, overruled by the views 
of the other commanders, and the battle of the 
Granicus was the consequence. 

Alexander encamped to refresh his army and 
to take care of the wounded. He went to see 
the wounded men one by one, inquired into the 
circumstances of each case, and listened to each 
one who was able to talk, while he gave an ac- 
count of his adventures in the battle, and the 
manner in which he received his wound. To 
be able thus to tell their story to their general, I 
and to see him listening to it with interest and(^ 
pleasure, filled their hearts with pride and joy ; 
H 



114 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Alexander resumes his march. The country surrenders. 

and the whole army was inspired with the high- 
est spirit of enthusiasm, and with eager desires 
to have another opportunity occur in which they 
could encounter danger and death in the service 
of such a leader. It is in such traits as these 
that the true greatness of the soul of Alexander 
shines. It must be remembered that all this 
time he was but little more than twenty-one. 
He was but just of age. 

From his encampment on the Granicus Alex- 
ander turned to the southward, and moved along 
on the eastern shores of the iEgean Sea. The 
country generally surrendered to him without 
opposition. In fact, it was hardly Persian ter- 
ritory at all. The inhabitants were mainly of 
Greek extraction, and had been sometimes 
under Greek and sometimes under Persian rule. 
The conquest of the country resulted simply in 
a change of the executive officer of each prov- 
ince. Alexander took special pains to lead the 
people to feel that they had nothing to fear from 
him. He would not allow the soldiers to do 
any injury. He protected all private property. 
He took possession only of the citadels, and of 
such governmental property as he found there, 
and he continued the same taxes, the same 
laws, and the same tribunals as had existed be. 



B.C. 334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 115 

Incidents. Alexander's generosity. 

fore his invasion. The cities and the provinces 
accordingly surrendered to him as he passed 
along, and in a very short time all the western 
part of Asia Minor submitted peacefully to his 
sway. 

The narrative of this progress, as given by 
the ancient historians, is diversified by a great 
variety of adventures and incidents, which give 
great interest to the story, and strikingly illus- 
trate the character of Alexander and the spirit 
of the times. In some places there would be a' 
contest between the Greek and the Persian 
parties before Alexander's arrival. At Ephe- 
sus the animosity had been so great that a sort 
of civil war had broken out. The Greek party 
had gained the ascendency, and were threaten- 
ing a general massacre of the Persian inhab- 
itants. Alexander promptly interposed to pro- 
tect them, though they were his enemies. The 
intelligence of this act of forbearance and gen- 
erosity spread all over the land, and added great- 
ly to the influence of Alexander's name, and to 
the estimation in which he was held. 

It was the custom in those days for the mass 
of the common soldiers to be greatly influenced 
by what they called omens, that is, signs and 
tokens which they observed in the flight or the 



11j6 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 

Omens. The eagle on the mast. Interpretations. 

actions of birds, and other similar appearances. 
In one case, the fleet, which had come along the 
sea, accompanying the march of the army on 
land, was pent up in a harbor by a stronger 
Persian fleet outside. One of the vessels of the 
Macedonian fleet was aground. An eagle light- 
ed upon the mast, and stood perched there for 
a long time, looking toward the sea. Parme- 
nio said that, as the eagle looked toward the 
sea, it indicated that victory lay in that quar- 
ter, and he recommended that they should arm 
their ships and push boldly out to attack the 
Persians. But Alexander maintained that, as 
the eagle alighted on a ship which was aground, 
it indicated that they were to look for their suc- 
cess on the shore. The omens could thus al- 
most always be interpreted any way, and sa- 
gacious generals only sought in them the means 
of confirming the courage and confidence of 
their soldiers, in respect to the plans which they 
adopted under the influence of other considera- 
tions altogether. Alexander knew very well 
that he was not a sailor, and had no desire to 
embark in contests from which, however they 
might end, he would himself personally obtain 
no glory. 

When the winter came on, Alexander and 



B.C. 334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 117 

Approach of winter. The newly married permitted to go home. 

his army were about three or four hundred miles 
from home ; and, as he did not intend to ad- 
vance much farther until the spring should open, 
he announced to the army that all those persons, 
both officers and soldiers, who had been married 
within the year, might go home if they chose, 
and spend the winter with their brides, and 
return to the army in the spring. No doubt 
this was an admirable stroke of policy ; for, as 
the number could not be large, their absence 
could not materially weaken his force, and they 
would, of course, fill all Greece with tales of 
Alexander's energy and courage, and of the 
nobleness and generosity of his character. It 
was the most effectual way possible of dissemi- 
nating through Europe the most brilliant ac- 
counts of what he had already done. 

Besides, it must have awakened a new bond 
of sympathy and fellow-feeling between himself 
and his soldiers, and greatly increased the at- 
tachment to him felt both by those who went 
and those who remained. And though Alex- 
ander must have been aware of all these advant- 
ages of the act, still no one could have thought of 
or adopted such a plan unless he was accustomed 
to consider and regard, in his dealings with oth- 
ers, the feelings and affections of the heart, and 



118 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 334. 



A detachment of bridegrooms. Taurus. 

to cherish a warm sympathy for them. The 
bridegroom soldiers, full of exultation and pleas- 
ure, set forth on their return to Greece, in a de- 
tachment under the charge of three generals, 
themselves bridegrooms too. 

Alexander, however, had no idea of remain- 
ing idle during: the winter. He marched on 
from province to province, and from city to city, 
meeting with every variety of adventures. He 
went first along the southern coast, until at 
length he came to a place where a mountain 
chain, called Taurus, comes down to the sea- 
coast, where it terminates abruptly in cliffs and 
precipices, leaving only a narrow beach between 
them and the water below. This beach was 
sometimes covered and sometimes bare. It is 
true, there is very little tide in the Mediterra- 
nean, but the level of the water along the shores 
is altered considerably by the long-continued 
pressure exerted in one direction or another by 
winds and storms. The water was up when 
Alexander reached this pass ; still he determin- 
ed to march his army through it. There was 
another way, back among the mountains, but 
Alexander seemed disposed to gratify the love 
of adventure which his army felt, by introducing 
them to a novel scene of danger. They accord- 



B.C. 334.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 119 

Passage through the sea. Hardships. The Meander. 

ingly defiled along under these cliffs, marching, 
as they say, sometimes up to the waist in wa- 
ter, the swell rolling in upon them all the time 
from the offing. 

Having at length succeeded in passing safely 
round this frowning buttress of the mountains, 
Alexander turned northward, and advanced into 
the very heart of Asia Minor. In doing this he 
had to pass over the range which he had come 
round before ; and, as it was winter, his army 
were, for a time, enveloped in snows and storms 
among the wild and frightful defiles. They had 
here, in addition to the dangers and hardships 
of the way and of the season, to encounter the 
hostility of their foes, as the tribes who inhab- 
ited these mountains assembled to dispute the 
passage. Alexander was victorious, and reach- 
ed a valley through which there flows a river 
which has handed down its name to the English 
language and literature. This river was the 
Meander. Its beautiful windings through ver- 
dant and fertile valleys were so renowned, that 
every stream which imitates its example is said 
to meander to the present day. 

During all this time Parmenio had remained 
in the western part of Asia Minor with a con- 
siderable body of the army. As the spring ap- 



120 Alexander the Great. [B.C.333. 

Gordium. Story of the Gordian knot 

proached, Alexander sent him orders to go to 
Gordium, whither he was himself proceeding, 
and meet him there. He also directed that the 
detachment which had gone home should, on 
recrossing the Hellespont on their return, pro- 
ceed eastward to Gordium, thus making that 
city the general rendezvous for the commence- 
ment of his next campaign. 

One reason why Alexander desired to go to 
Gordium was that he wished to untie the fa- 
mous Gordian knot. The story of the Gordian 
knot was this. Gordius was a sort of mountain 
farmer. One day he was plowing, and an eagle 
came down and alighted upon his yoke, and re- 
mained there until he had finished his plowing. 
This was an omen, but what was the significa- 
tion of it ? Gordius did not know, and he ac- 
cordingly went to a neighboring town in order 
to consult the prophets and soothsayers. On 
his way he met a damsel, who, like Rebecca in 
the days of Abraham, was going forth to draw 
water. Gordius fell into conversation with her, 
and related to her the occurrence which had in- 
terested him so strongly. The maiden advised 
him to go back and offer a sacrifice to Jupiter. 
Finally, she consented to go back with him and 
aid him. The affair ended in her becoming his 



B.C.333.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 121 

Midas. Gordius made king. 

wife, and they lived together in peace for many- 
years upon their farm. 

They had a son named Midas. The father 
and mother were accustomed to go out some- 
times in their cart or wagon, drawn by the oxen, 
Midas driving. One day they were going into 
the town in this way, at a time when it hap- 
pened that there was an assembly convened, 
which was in a state of great perplexity on ac- 
count of the civil dissensions and contests which 
prevailed in the country. They had just in- 
quired of an oracle what they should do. The 
oracle said that " a cart would bring them a 
king, who would terminate their eternal broils." 
Just then Midas came up, driving the cart in 
which his father and mother were seated. The 
assembly thought at once that this must be the 
cart meant by the oracle, and they made Gor- 
dius king by acclamation. They took the cart 
and the yoke to preserve as sacred relics, con- 
secrating them to Jupiter ; and Gordius tied 
the yoke to the pole of the cart by a thong of 
leather, making a knot so close and complicated 
that nobody could untie it again. It was called 
the Gordian knot. The oracle afterward said 
that whoever should untie this knot should be- 



122 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Alexander cuts the knot. He resumes his march. 

come monarch of all Asia. Thus far, nobody 
had succeeded. 

Alexander felt a great desire to see this knot 
and try what he could do. He went, accordingly, 
into the temple where the sacred cart had been 
deposited, and, after looking at the knot, and 
satisfying himself that the task of untying it 
was hopeless, he cut it to pieces with his sword. 
How far the circumstances of this whole story 
are true, and how far fictitious, no one can tell ; 
the story itself, however, as thus related, has 
come down from generation to generation, in 
every country of Europe, for two thousand years, 
and any extrication of one's self from a difficulty 
by violent means has been called cutting the 
Gordian knot to the present day. 

At length the whole army was assembled, 
and the king recommenced his progress. He 
went on successfully for some weeks, moving in 
a southeasterly direction, and bringing the whole 
country under his dominion, until, at length, 
when he reached Tarsus, an event occurred 
which nearly terminated his career. There 
were some circumstances which caused him to 
press forward with the utmost effort in approach- 
ing Tarsus, and, as the day was warm, he got 
very much overcome with heat and fatigue. In 




I U=JJ :.UiOJ: ' "i 



B.C. 333.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 125 

Alexander's bath in the Cydnus. His sickness. 

this state, he went and plunged suddenly into 
the River Cydnus to bathe. 

Now the Cydnus is a small stream, flowing 
by Tarsus, and it comes down from Mount Tau- 
rus at a short distance back from the city. 
Such streams are always very cold. Alexander 
was immediately seized with a very violent chill, 
and was taken out of the water shivering ex- 
cessively, and, at length, fainted away. They 
thought he was dying. They bore him to his 
tent, and, as tidings of their leader's danger 
spread through the camp, the whole army, offi- 
cers and soldiers, were thrown into the greatest 
consternation and grief. 

A violent and protracted fever came on. In 
the course of it, an incident occurred which 
strikingly illustrates the boldness and original- 
ity of Alexander's character. The name of his 
physician was Philip. Philip had been pre- 
paring a particular medicine for him, which, it 
seems, required some days to make ready. Just 
before it was presented, Alexander received a 
letter from Parmenio, informing him that he 
had good reason to believe that Philip had been 
bribed by the Persians to murder him, during 
his sickness, by administering poison in the 
name of medicine. He wrote, he said, to put 



126 Alexander the Great. [B.C.333. 

Alexander's physician Philip. Suspicions of poison. 

him on his guard against any medicine which 
Philip might offer him. 

Alexander put the letter under his pillow, and 
communicated its contents to no one. At length , 
when the medicine was ready, Philip brought it 
in. Alexander took the cup containing it with 
one hand, and with the other he handed Philip 
the communication which he had received from 
Parmenio, saying, " Read that letter." As soon 
as Philip had finished reading it, and was ready 
to look up, Alexander drank off the draught in 
full, and laid down the cup with an air of per- 
fect confidence that he had nothing to fear. 

Some persons think that Alexander watched 
the countenance of his physician while he was 
reading the letter, and that he was led to take 
the medicine by his confidence in his power to 
determine the guilt or the innocence of a person 
thus accused by his looks. Others suppose that 
the act was an expression of his implicit faith 
in the integrity and fidelity of his servant, and 
that he intended it as testimony, given in a very 
pointed and decisive, and, at the same time, del- 
icate manner, that he was not suspicious of his 
friends, or easily led to distrust their faithful- 
ness. Philip was, at any rate, extremely grat- 
ified at the procedure, and Alexander recovered. 



B.C. 333.] Campaign in Asia Minor. 127 

Asia subdued. The plain of Issus. 

Alexander had now traversed the whole ex- 
tent of Asia Minor, and had subdued the entire 
country to his sway. He was now advancing 
to another district, that of Syria and Palestine, 
which lies on the eastern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. To enter this new territory, he had 
to pass over a narrow plain which lay between 
the mountains and the sea, at a place called Is- 
sus. Here he was met by the main body of the 
Persian army, and the great battle of Issus was 
fought. This battle will be the subject of the 
next chapter. 



128 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Darius's opinion of Alexander. He prepares to meet him. 



Chapter VI. 
Defeat of Darius. 

THUS far Alexander had had only the lieu- 
tenants and generals of the Persian mon- 
arch to contend with. Darius had at first looked 
upon the invasion of his vast dominions by such 
a mere boy, as he called him, and by so small 
an army, with contempt. He sent word to his 
generals in Asia Minor to seize the young fool, 
and send him to Persia bound hand and foot. 
By the time, however, that Alexander had pos- 
sessed himself of all Asia Minor, Darius began 
to find that, though young, he was no fool^jtnd 
that it was not likely to be very easy to seize 
him. 

Accordingly, Darius collected an immense 
army himself, and advanced to meet the Mace- 
donians in person. Nothing could exceed the 
pomp and magnificence of his preparations. 
There were immense numbers of troops, and 
they were of all nations. There were even a 
great many Greeks among his forces, many of 
them enlisted from the Greeks of Asia Minor. 
There were some from Greece itself — mercena- 



B.C. 333] Defeat of Darius. 129 

Greek mercenaries. Counsel of Charidemus. 



ries, as they were called; that is, soldiers who 
fought for pay, and who were willing to enter 
into any service which would pay them best. 

There were even some Greek officers and 
counselors in the family and court of Darius. 
One of them, named Charidemus, offended the 
king very much by the free opinion which he 
expressed of the uselessness of all his pomp and 
parade in preparing for an encounter with such 
an enemy as Alexander. " Perhaps," said Char- 
idemus, " you may not be pleased with my 
speaking to you plainly, but if I do not do it 
now, it will be too late hereafter. This great 
parade and pomp, and this enormous multitude 
of $nen, might be formidable to your Asiatic 
nryibors ; but such sort of preparation will be 
of little avail against Alexander and his Greeks. 
Your army is resplendent with purple and gold. 
No one who had not seen it could conceive of 
its magnificenoe ; but it will not be of any avail 
against the terrible energy of the Greeks. Their 
minds are bent on something very different from 
idle show. They are intent on securing the sub- 
stantial excellence of their weapons, and on ac- 
quiring the discipline and the hardihood essen- 
tial for the most efficient use of them. They 
will despise all your parade of purple and gold. 
I 



130 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Darius's displeasure at Charidemus. He condemns him to death. 

They will not even value it as plunder. They 
glory in their ability to dispense with all the 
luxuries and conveniences of life. They live 
upon the coarsest food. At night they sleep 
upon the bare ground. By day they are always 
on the march. They brave hunger, cold, and 
every species of exposure with pride and pleas- 
ure, having the greatest contempt for any thing 
like softness and effeminacy of character. All 
this pomp and pageantry, with inefficient weap- 
ons, and inefficient men to wield them, will be 
of no avail against their invincible courage and 
energy ; and the best disposition that you can 
make of all your gold, and silver, and other 
treasures, is to send it away and procure good 
soldiers with it, if indeed gold and silver will 
procure them." 

The Greeks were habituated to energetic 
speaking as well as acting, but Charidemus did 
not sufficiently consider that the Persians were 
not accustomed to hear such plain language as 
this. Darius was very much displeased. In 
his anger he condemned him to death. "Very 
well," said Charidemus, "I can die. But my 
avenger is at hand. My advice is good, and 
Alexander will soon punish you for not regard- 
ing it." 



B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 131 

Magnificence of Darius's army. Worship of the sun. 

Very gorgeous descriptions are given of the 
pomp and magnificence of the army of Darius, 
as he commenced his march from the Euphra- 
tes to the Mediterranean. The Persians wor- 
ship the sun and fire. Over the king's tent 
there was an image of the sun in crystal, and 
supported in such a manner as to be in the view 
of the whole army. They had also silver altars, 
on which they kept constantly burning what 
they called the sacred fire. These altars were 
borne by persons appointed for the purpose, w r ho 
were clothed in magnificent costumes. Then 
came a long procession of priests and magi, who 
were dressed also in very splendid robes. They 
performed the services of public worship. Fol- 
lowing them came a chariot consecrated to the 
sun. It was drawn by white horses, and was 
followed by a single white horse of large size 
and noble form, which was a sacred animal, be- 
ing called the horse of the sun. The equerries, 
that is, the attendants who had charge of this 
horse, w r ere also all dressed in white, and each 
carried a golden rod in his hand. 

There w T ere bodies of troops distinguished 
from the rest, and occupying positions of high 
honor, but these were selected and advanced 
above the others, not on account of their cour- 



132 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The Kinsmen. The Immortals. Appearance of Darius. 

age, or strength, or superior martial efficiency, 
but from considerations connected with their 
birth, and rank, and other aristocratic qualities. 
There was one body called the Kinsmen, who 
were the relatives of the king, or, at least, so con- 
sidered, though, as there were fifteen thousand 
of them, it would seem that the relationship 
could not have been, in all cases, very near. 
They were dressed with great magnificence, 
and prided themselves on their rank, their 
wealth, and the splendor of their armor. There 
was also a corps called the Immortals. They 
were ten thousand in number. They wore a 
dress of gold tissue, which glittered with span- 
gles and precious stones. 

These bodies of men, thus dressed, made an 
appearance more like that of a civic procession, 
on an occasion of ceremony and rejoicing, than 
like the march of an army. The appearance of 
the king in his chariot was still more like an 
exhibition of pomp and parade. The carriage 
was very large, elaborately carved and gilded, 
and ornamented with statues and sculptures. 
Here the king sat on a very elevated seat, in 
sight of all. He was clothed in a vest of pur- 
ple, striped with silver, and over his vest he 
wore a robe glittering with gold and precious 



B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 133 



Costly apparel of Darius. His family. 

stones. Around his waist was a golden girdle, 
from which was suspended his cimeter — a spe- 
cies of sword — the scabbard of which was re- 
splendent with gems. He wore a tiara upon 
his head of very costly and elegant workman- 
ship, and enriched, like the rest of his dress, 
with brilliant ornaments. The guards who 
preceded and followed him had pikes of silver, 
mounted and tipped with gold. 

It is very extraordinary that King Darius 
took his wife and all his family with him, and 
a large portion of his treasures, on this expedi- 
tion against Alexander. His mother, whose 
name was Sysigambis, was in his family, and 
she and his wife came, each in her own chariot, 
immediately after the king. Then there were 
fifteen carriages filled with the children and 
their attendants, and three or four hundred la- 
dies of the court, all dressed like queens. After 
the family there came a train of many hun- 
dreds of camels and mules, carrying the royal 
treasures. 

It was in this style that Darius set out upon 
his expedition, and he advanced by a slow prog- 
ress toward the westward, until at length he 
approached the shores of the Mediterranean 
Sea. He left his treasures in the city of Da- 



134 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 



Darius advances to meet Alexander. 



Map of the plain of Issus. 



mascus, where they were deposited under the 
charge of a sufficient force to protect them, as 
he supposed. He then advanced to meet Alex- 
ander, going himself from Syria toward Asia 
Minor just at the time that Alexander was 
coming from Asia Minor into Syria. 




Plain of Issus. 

It will be observed by looking upon the map, 



B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 135 

Mount Taurus. Route of Darius. 

that the chain of mountains called Mount Tau- 
rus extends down near to the coast, at the 
northeastern corner of the Mediterranean. 
Among these mountains there are various tracts 
of open country, through which an army may 
march to and fro, between Syria and Asia Mi- 
nor. Now it happened that Darius, in going 
toward the west, took a more inland route than 
Alexander, who, on coming eastward, kept near- 
er to the sea. Alexander did not know that 
Darius was so near ; and as for Darius, he was 
confident that Alexander was retreating before 
him ; for, as the Macedonian army was so small, 
and his own forces constituted such an innu- 
merable host, the idea that Alexander would 
remain to brave a battle was, in his opinion, en- 
tirely out of the question. He had, therefore, 
no doubt that Alexander was retreating. It is, 
of course, always difficult for two armies, fifty 
miles apart, to obtain correct ideas of each oth- 
er's movements. All the ordinary intercommu- 
nications of the country are of course stopped, 
and each general has his scouts out, with or- 
ders to intercept all travelers, and to interrupt 
the communication of intelligence by every 
means in their power. 

In consequence of these and other circum- 



136 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Situation of Issws. The armies pass each other. 

stances of a similar nature, it happened that 
Alexander and Darius actually passed each oth- 
er, without either of them being aware of it. 
Alexander advanced into Syria by the plains of 
Issus, marked a upon the map, and a narrow 
pass beyond, called the Gates of Syria, while 
Darius went farther to the north, and arrived 
at Issus after Alexander had left it. Here each 
army learned to their astonishment that their 
enemy was in their rear. Alexander could not 
credit this report when he first heard it. He 
dispatched a galley with thirty oars along the 
shore, up the Gulf of Issus, to ascertain the 
truth. The galley soon came back and report- 
ed that, beyond the Gates of Syria, they saw 
the whole country, which was nearly level land, 
though gently rising from the sea, covered with 
the vast encampments of the Persian army. 

The king then called his generals and coun- 
selors together, informed them of the facts, and 
made known to them his determination to re- 
turn immediately through the Gates of Syria 
and attack the Persian army. The officers re- 
ceived the intelligence with enthusiastic ex- 
pressions of joy. 

It was now near the evening. Alexander 
sent forward a strong reconnoitering party, or- 






B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 137 

Reconnoitering parties. A camp at night 

dering them to proceed cautiously, to ascend 
eminences and look far before them, to guard 
carefully against surprise, and to send back 
word immediately if they came upon any traces 
of the enemy. At the present day the opera- 
tions of such a reconnoitering party are very 
much aided by the use of spy-glasses, which are 
made now with great care expressly for milita- 
ry purposes. The instrument, however, was 
not known in Alexander's day. 

When the evening came on, Alexander fol- 
lowed the reconnoitering party with the main 
body of the army. At midnight they reached 
the defile. When they were secure in the pos- 
session of it, they halted. Strong watches were 
stationed on all the surrounding heights to guard 
against any possible surprise. Alexander him- 
self ascended one of the eminences, from whence 
he could look down upon the great plain beyond, 
which was dimly illuminated in every part by 
the smouldering fires of the Persian encamp- 
ment. An encampment at night is a spectacle 
which is always grand, and often sublime. It 
must have appeared sublime to Alexander in 
the highest degree, on this occasion. To stand 
stealthily among these dark and somber mount- 
ains, with the defiles and passes below filled 



138 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The night before the battle. Sublime and solemn scenes. 

with the columns of his small but undaunted 
army, and to look onward, a few miles beyond, 
and see the countless fires of the vast hosts 
which had got between him and all hope of re- 
treat to his native land; to feel, as he must 
have done, that his fate, and that of all who 
were with him, depended upon the events of 
the day that was soon to dawn — to see and feel 
these things must have made this night one of 
the most exciting and solemn scenes in the con- 
queror's life. He had a soul to enjoy its ex- 
citement and sublimity. He gloried in it ; and, 
as if he wished to add to the solemnity of the 
scene, he caused an altar to be erected, and of- 
fered a sacrifice, by torch-light, to the deities on 
whose aid his soldiers imagined themselves most 
dependent for success on the morrow. Of course 
a place was selected where the lights of the 
torches would not attract the attention of the 
enemy, and sentinels were stationed at every 
advantageous point to watch the Persian camp 
lor the slightest indications of movement or 
alarm. 

In the morning, at break of day, Alexander 
commenced his march down to the plain. In 
the evening, at sunsetj all the valleys and defiles 
among the mountains around the plain of Issus 



B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 139 

Defeat of the Persians. Flight of Darius. 

were thronged with vast masses of the Persian 
army, broken, disordered, and in confusion, all 
pressing forward to escape from the victorious 
Macedonians. They crowded all the roads, they 
choked up the mountain passes, they trampled 
upon one another, they fell, exhausted with fa- 
tigue and mental agitation. Darius was among 
them, though his flight had been so sudden that 
he had left his mother, and his wife, and all his 
family behind. He pressed on in his chariot as 
far as the road allowed his chariot to go, and 
then, leaving every thing behind, he mounted 
a horse and rode on for his life. 

Alexander and his army soon abandoned the 
pursuit, and returned to take possession of the 
Persian camp. The tents of King Darius and 
his household were inconceivably splendid, and 
were filled with gold and silver vessels, caskets, 
vases, boxes of perfumes, and every imaginable 
article of luxury and show. The mother and 
wife of Darius bewailed their hard fate with 
cries and tears, and continued all the evening 
in an agony of consternation and despair. 

Alexander, hearing of this, sent Leonnatus, 
his former teacher, a man of years and gravity, 
to quiet their fears and comfort them, so far as 
it was possible to comfort them. In addition 



140 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The mother and wife of Darius taken captive. Their grief. 

to their own captivity, they supposed that Da- 
rius was killed, and the mother was mourning 
bitterly for her son, and the wife for her hus- 
band. Leonnatus, attended by some soldiers, 
advanced toward the tent where these mourn- 
ers were dwelling. The attendants at the door 
ran in and informed them that a body of Greeks 
were coming. This threw them into the great- 
est consternation. They anticipated violence 
and death, and threw themselves upon the 
ground in agony. Leonnatus waited some time 
at the door for the attendants to return. At 
length he entered the tent. This renewed the 
terrors of the women. They began to entreat 
him to spare their lives, at least until there 
should be time for them to see the remains of 
the son and husband whom they mourned, and 
to pay the last sad tribute to his memory. 

Leonnatus soon relieved their fears. He told 
them that he was charged by Alexander to say 
to them that Darius was alive, having made his 
escape in safety. As to themselves, Alexander 
assured them, he said, that they should not be 
injured; that not only were their persons and 
lives to be protected, but no change was to be 
made in their condition or mode of life ; they 
should continue to be treated like queens. He 



B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 141 

Alexander's kindness to the captives. Hephaestion. 

added, moreover, that Alexander wished him to 
say that he felt no animosity or ill will whatev- 
er against Darius. He was but technically his 
enemy, being only engaged in a generous and 
honorable contest with him for the empire of 
Asia. Saying these things, Leonnatus raised 
the disconsolate ladies from the ground, and they 
gradually regained some degree of composure. 

Alexander himself went to pay a visit to the 
captive princesses the next day. He took with 
him Hephaestion. Hephaestion was Alexander's 
personal friend. The two young men were of 
the same age, and, though Alexander had the 
good sense to retain in power all the old and 
experienced officers which his father had em- 
ployed, both in the court and army, he showed 
that, after all, ambition had not overwhelmed 
and stifled all the kindlier feelings of the heart, 
by his strong attachment to this young compan- 
ion. Hephaestion was his confidant, his asso- 
ciate, his personal friend. He did what very 
few monarchs have done, either before or since, 
in securing for himself the pleasures of friend- 
ship, and of intimate social communion with a 
heart kindred to his own, without ruining him- 
self by committing to a favorite powers which 
he was not qualified to wield. Alexander left 



142 Alexander the Great. [B.C.333. 

Alexander's interview with the queens. A mistake. 

the wise and experienced Parmenio to manage 
the camp, while he took the young and hand- 
some Hephaestion to accompany him on his visit 
to the captive queens. 

When the two friends entered the tent, the 
ladies were, from some cause, deceived, and mis- 
took Hephaestion for Alexander, and addressed 
him, accordingly, with tokens of high respect and 
homage. One of their attendants immediately 
rectified the mistake, telling them that the oth- 
er was Alexander. The ladies were at first over- 
whelmed with confusion, and attempted to apol- 
ogize ; but the king reassured them at once by 
the easy and good-natured manner with which 
he passed over the mistake, saying it was no 
mistake at all. "It is true," said he, "that I 
am Alexander, but then he is Alexander too." 

The wife of Darius was young and very beau- 
tiful, and they had a little son who was with 
them in the camp. It seems almost unaccount- 
able that Darius should have brought such a 
helpless and defenseless charge with him into 
camps and fields of battle. But the truth was 
that he had no idea of even a battle with Alex- 
ander, and as to defeat, he did not contemplate 
the remotest possibility of it. He regarded Al- 
exander as a mere boy — energetic and daring, 



B.C. 333.] Defeat op Darius. 143 

Boldness of Alexander's policy. Number of Persians slain. 

it is true, and at the head of a desperate band 
of adventurers ; but he considered his whole 
force as altogether too insignificant to make any 
stand against such a vast military power as he 
was bringing against him. He presumed that 
he would retreat as fast as possible before the 
Persian army came near him. The idea^ of 
such a boy coming down at break of day, from 
narrow defiles of the mountains, upon his vast 
encampment covering all the plains, and in 
twelve hours putting the whole mighty mass 
to flight, was what never entered his imagina- 
tion at all. The exploit was, indeed, a very ex- 
traordinary one. Alexander's forces may have 
consisted of forty or fifty thousand men, and, 
if we may believe their story, there were over 
a hundred thousand Persians left dead upon the 
field. Many of these were, however, killed by 
the dreadful confusion and violence of the retreat, 
as vast bodies of horsemen, pressing through the 
defiles, rode over and trampled down the foot 
soldiers who were toiling in awful confusion 
along the way, having fled before the horsemen 
left the field. 

Alexander had heard that Darius had left the 
greater part of his royal treasures in Damas- 
cus, and he sent Parmenio there to seize them. 



144 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Capture of immense treasure. Negotiation!. 

This expedition was successful. An enormous 
amount of gold and silver fell into Alexander's 
hands. The plate was coined into money, and 
many of the treasures were sent to Greece. 

Darius got together a small remnant of his 
army and continued his flight. He did not 
stop until he had crossed the Euphrates. He 
then sent an embassador to Alexander to make 
propositions for peace. He remonstrated with 
him, in the communicati»n which he made, for 
coming thus to invade his dominions, and urged 
him to withdraw and be satisfied with his own 
kingdom. He offered him any sum he might 
name as a ransom for his mother, wife, and 
child, and agreed that if he would deliver them 
up to him on the payment of the ransom, and 
depart from his dominions, he would thenceforth 
regard him as an ally and a friend. 

Alexander replied by a letter, expressed in 
brief but very decided language. He said that 
the Persians had, under the ancestors of Dari- 
us, crossed the Hellespont, invaded Greece, laid 
waste the country, and destroyed cities and 
towns, and had thus done them incalculable in- 
jury ; and that Darius himself had been plotting 
against his (Alexander's) life, and offering re- 
wards to anv one who would kill him. " I am 



B.C. 333.] Defeat of Darius. 145 

Alexander's message to Darius. Grecian captives. 

acting, then," continued Alexander, "only on 
the defensive. The gods, who always favor the 
right, have given me the victory. I am now 
monarch of a large part of Asia, and your sov- 
ereign king. If you will admit this, and come 
to me as my subject, I will restore to you your 
mother, your wife, and your child, without any 
ransom. And, at any rate, whatever you de- 
cide in respect to these proposals, if you wish 
to communicate with me on any subject here- 
after, I shall pay no attention to what you send 
unless you address it to me as your king." 

One circumstance occurred at the close of 
this great victory which illustrates the magna- 
nimity of Alexander's character, and helps to ex- 
plain the very strong personal attachment which 
every body within the circle of his influence so 
obviously felt for him. He found a great num- 
ber of envoys and embassadors from the various 
states of Greece at the Persian court, and these 
persons fell into his hands among the other 
captives. Now the states and cities of Greece, 
all except Sparta and Thebes, which last city 
he had destroyed, were combined ostensibly in 
the confederation by which Alexander was sus- 
tained. It seems, however, that there was a 
secret enmity against him in Greece, and vari- 
K 



146 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The Theban envoys. Alexander's victorious progress. 

ous parties had sent messengers and agents to 
the Persian court to aid in plots and schemes 
to interfere with and defeat Alexander's plans. 
The Thebans, scattered and disorganized as they 
were, had sent envoys in this way. Now Al- 
exander, in considering what disposition he 
should make of these emissaries from his own 
land, decided to regard them all as traitors ex- 
cept the Thebans. All except the Thebans 
were traitors, he maintained, for acting secret- 
ly against him, while ostensibly, and by solemn 
covenants, they were his friends. " The case 
of the Thebans is very different," said he. " I 
have destroyed their city, and they have a right 
to consider me their enemy, and to do all they 
can to oppose my progress, and to regain their 
own lost existence and their former power." So 
he gave them their liberty and sent them away 
with marks of consideration and honor. 

As the vast army of the Persian monarch 
had now been defeated, of course none of the 
smaller kingdoms or provinces thought of resist- 
ing. They yielded one after another, and Al- 
exander appointed governors of his own to rule 
over them. He advanced in this manner along 
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, 
meeting with no obstruction until he reached 
the great and powerful city of Tyre. 



• 



B.C. 333.] The Siege of Tyre. 147 

The city of Tyre. Its situation and extent 



Chapter VII. 

The Siege of Tyre. 

fTIHE city of Tyre stood on a small island, 
-*- three or four miles in diameter,* on the 
eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It 
was, in those days, the greatest commercial city 
in the World, and it exercised a great maritime 
power by means of its fleets and ships, which 
traversed every part of the Mediterranean. 

Tyre had been built originally on the main- 
land ; but in some of the wars which it had to 
encounter with the kings of Babylon in the 
East, this old city had been abandoned by the 
inhabitants, and a new one built upon an isl- 
and not far from the shore, which could be more 
easily defended from an enemy. The old city 
had gone to ruin, and its place was occupied by 
old walls, fallen towers, stones, columns, arch- 
es, and other remains of the ancient magnifi- 
cence of the place. 

The island on which the Tyre of Alexander's 

* There are different statements in respect to the size of 
this island, varying from three to nine miles in circumference. 



148 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Pursuits of the Tyrians. Their great wealth and resources. 

day had been built was about half a mile from 
the shore. The water between was about 
eighteen feet deep, and formed a harbor for the 
vessels. The great business of the Tyrians 
was commerce. They bought and sold mer- 
chandise in all the ports of the Mediterranean 
Sea, and transported it by their merchant ves- 
sels to and fro. They had also fleets of war 
galleys, which they used to protect their inter- 
ests on the high seas, and in the various ports 
which their merchant vessels visited. They 
were thus wealthy and powerful, and yet they 
lived shut up upon their little island, and were 
almost entirely independent of the main-land. 

The city itself, however, though contracted 
in extent on account of the small dimensions 
of the island, was very compactly built and 
strongly fortified, and it contained a vast num- 
ber of stately and magnificent edifices, which 
were filled with stores of wealth that had been 
accumulated by the mercantile enterprise and 
thrift of many generations. Extravagant sto- 
ries are told by the historians and geographers 
of those days, in respect to the scale on which 
the structures of Tyre were built. It was said, 
for instance, that the walls were one hundred 
and fifty feet high. It is true that the walls 



B.C.333.] The Siege of Tyre. 149 

The walls of Tyre. Influence and power of Tyre. 

rose directly from the surface of the water, and 
of course a considerable part of their elevation 
was required to bring them up to the level of 
the surface of the land ; and then, in addition to 
this, they had to be carried up the whole ordi- 
nary height of a city wall to afford the usual 
protection to the edifices and dwellings within. 
There might have been some places where the 
walls themselves, or structures connected with 
them, were carried up to the elevation above 
named, though it is scarcely to be supposed that 
such could have been their ordinary dimensions. 

At any rate, Tyre was a very wealthy, mag- 
nificent, and powerful city, intent on its com- 
mercial operations, and well furnished with 
means of protecting them at sea, but feeling 
little interest, and taking little part, in the con- 
tentions continually arising among the rival 
powers which had possession of the land. Their 
policy was to retain their independence, and yet 
to keep on good terms with all other powers, 
so that their commercial intercourse with the 
ports of all nations might go on undisturbed. 

It was, of course, a very serious question 
with Alexander, as his route lay now through 
Phoenicia and in the neighborhood of Tyre, what 
he should do in respect to such a port. He did 



150 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Alexander hesitates in regard to Tyre. Presents from the Tynans. 

not like to leave it behind him and proceed to 
the eastward ; for, in case of any reverses hap- 
pening to him, the Tyrians would be very like- 
ly to act decidedly against him, and their pow- 
er on the Mediterranean would enable them to 
act very efficiently against him on all the coasts 
of Greece and Asia Minor. On the other hand, 
it seemed a desperate undertaking to attack the 
city. He had none but land forces, and the isl- 
and was half a mile from the shore. Besides 
its enormous walls, rising perpendicularly out of 
the water, it was defended by ships well armed 
and manned. It was not possible to surround 
the city and starve it into submission, as the 
inhabitants had wealth to buy, and ships to 
bring in, any quantity of provisions and stores 
by sea. Alexander, however, determined not 
to follow Darius toward the east, and leave such 
a stronghold as this behind him. 

The Tyrians wished to avoid a quarrel if it 
were possible. They sent complimentary mes- 
sages to Alexander, congratulating him on his 
conquests, and disavowing all feelings of hostil- 
ity to him. They also sent him a golden crown, 
as many of the other states of Asia had done, 
in token of their yielding a general submission 
to his authority. Alexander returned very gra- 



B.C. 333.] The Siege of Tyre. 151 

Alexander refused admittance into Tyre. He resolves to attack it. 

oious replies, and expressed to them his inten- 
tion of coming to Tyre for the purpose of offer- 
ing sacrifices, as he said, to Hercules, a god 
whom the Tyrians worshiped. 

The Tyrians knew that wherever Alexander 
went he went at the head of his army, and his 
coming into Tyre at all implied necessarily his 
taking military possession of it. They thought 
it might, perhaps, be somewhat difficult to dis- 
possess such a visitor after he should once get 
installed in their castles and palaces. So they 
sent him word that it would not be in their 
power to receive him in the city itself, but that 
he could offer the sacrifice which he intended on 
the main-land, as there was a temple sacred to 
Hercules among the ruins there. 

Alexander then called a council of his offi- 
cers, and stated to them his views. He said 
that, on reflecting fully upon the subject, he had 
come to the conclusion that it was best to post- 
pone pushing his expedition forward into the 
heart of Persia until he should have subdued 
Tyre completely, and made himself master of 
the Mediterranean Sea. He said, also, that he 
should take possession of Egypt before turning 
his arms toward the forces that Darius was 
gathering against him in the East. The gen- 



152 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Alexander's plan. Its difficulties and dangers. 

erals of the army concurred in this opinion, and 
Alexander advanced toward Tyre. The Tyri- 
ans prepared for their defense. 

After examining carefully all the circumstan- 
ces of the case, Alexander conceived the very 
bold plan of building a broad causeway from the 
main-land to the island on which the city was 
founded, out of the ruins of old Tyre, and then 
marching his army over upon it to the walls of 
the city, where he could then plant his engines 
and make a breach. This would seem to be a 
very desperate undertaking. It is true the 
stones remaining on the site of the old city af- 
forded sufficient materials for the construction 
of the pier, but then the work must go on against 
a tremendous opposition, both from the walls of 
the city itself and from the Tyrian ships in the 
harbor. It would seem to be almost impossible 
to protect the men from these attacks so as to 
allow the operations to proceed at all, and the 
difficulty and danger must increase very rapidly 
as the work should approach the walls of the 
city. But, notwithstanding these objections, 
Alexander determined to proceed. Tyre must 
be taken, and this was obviously the only pos- 
sible mode of taking it. 

The soldiers advanced to undertake the work 



B.C. 333.] The Siege of Tyre. 153 

Enthusiasm of the army. Construction of the pier. 

with great readiness. Their strong personal at- 
tachment to Alexander ; their confidence that 
whatever he should plan and attempt would 
succeed ; the novelty and boldness of this design 
of reaching an island by building an isthmus to 
it from the main-land — these and other similar 
considerations excited the ardor and enthusiasm 
of the troops to the highest degree. 

In constructing works of this kind in the wa- 
ter, the material used is sometimes stone and 
sometimes earth. So far as earth is employed, 
it is necessary to resort to some means to pre- 
vent its spreading under the water, or being 
washed away by the dash of the waves at its 
sides. This is usually effected by driving what 
are called piles, which are long beams of wood, 
pointed at the end, and driven into the earth by 
means of powerful engines. Alexander sent 
parties of men into the mountains of Lebanon, 
where were vast forests of cedars, which were 
very celebrated in ancient times, and which are 
often alluded to in the sacred scriptures. They 
cut down these trees, and brought the stems of 
them to the shore, where they sharpened them 
at one end and drove them into the sand, in or- 
der to protect the sides of their embankment. 
Others brought stones from the ruins and turn- 



154 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 33S. 

Progress of the work. Counter operations of the Tyrians. 

bled them into the sea in the direction where 
the pier was to be built. It was some time be- 
fore the work made such progress as to attract 
much attention from Tyre. At length, howev- 
er, when the people of the city saw it gradually 
increasing in size and advancing toward them, 
they concluded that they must engage in earn- 
est in the work of arresting its progress. 

They accordingly constructed engines on the 
walls to throw heavy darts and stones over the 
water to the men upon the pier. They sent 
secretly to the tribes that inhabited the valleys 
and ravines among the mountains, to attack 
the parties at work there, and they landed for- 
ces from the city at some distance from the 
pier, and then marched along the shore, and at- 
tempted to drive away the men that were en- 
gaged in carrying stones from the ruins. They 
also fitted up and manned some galleys of large 
size, and brought them up near to the pier it- 
self, and attacked the men who were at work 
upon it with stones, darts, arrows, and missiles 
of every description. 

But all was of no avail. The work, though 
impeded, still went on. Alexander built large 
screens of wood upon the pier, covering them 
with hides, which protected his soldiers from the 






B.C.333.] The Siege of Tyre. 155 

Structures erected on the pier. The Tyrians fit up a fire ship. 

weapons of the enemy, so that they could carry 
on their operations safely behind them. By 
these means the work advanced for some dis- 
tance further. As it advanced, various struc- 
tures were erected upon it, especially along the 
sides and at the end toward the city. These 
structures consisted of great engines for driving 
piles, and machines for throwing stones and 
darts, and towers carried up to a great height, 
to enable the men to throw stones and heavy 
weapons down upon the galleys which might 
attempt to approach them. 

At length the Tyrians determined on attempt- 
ing to destroy all these wooden works by means 
of what is called in modern times a fire ship. 
They took a large galley, and filled it with com- 
bustibles of every kind. They loaded it first 
with light dry wood, and they poured pitch, and 
tar, and oil over all this wood to make it burn 
with fiercer flames. They saturated the sails 
and the cordage in the same manner, and laid 
trains of combustible materials through all parts 
of the vessel, so that when fire should be set in 
one part it would immediately spread every 
where, and set the whole mass in flames at 
once. They towed this ship, on a windy day, 
near to the enemy's works, and on the side from 



156 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The ship fired and set adrift. The conflagration. 

which the wind was blowing. They then put 
it in motion toward the pier at a point where 
there was the greatest collection of engines and 
machines, and when they had got as near as 
they dared to go themselves, the men who were 
on board set the trains on fire, and made their 
escape in boats. The flames ran all over the 
vessel with inconceivable rapidity. The vessel 
itself drifted down upon Alexander's works, not- 
withstanding the most strenuous exertions of 
his soldiers to keep it away. The frames and 
engines, and the enormous and complicated ma- 
chines which had been erected, took fire, and 
the whole mass was soon enveloped in a gener- 
al conflagration. 

The men made desperate attempts to defend 
their works, but all in vain. Some were killed 
by arrows and darts, some were burned to 
death, and others, in the confusion, fell into 
the sea. Finally, the army was obliged to draw 
back, and to abandon all that was combustible 
in the vast construction they had reared, to the 
devouring flames. 

Not long after this the sea itself came to the 
aid of the Tyrians. There was a storm ; and, 
as a consequence of it, a heavy swell rolled in 
from the offing, which soon undermined and 



B.C. 333.] The Siege of Tyre. 159 

Effects of the storm. The work began anew. 

washed away a large part of the pier. The ef- 
fects of a heavy sea on the most massive and 
substantial structures, when they are fairly ex- 
posed to its impulse, are far greater than would 
be conceived possible by those who had not wit- 
nessed them. The most ponderous stones are 
removed, the strongest fastenings are torn asun- 
der, and embankments the most compact and 
solid are undermined and washed away. The 
storm, in this case, destroyed in a few hours the 
work of many months, while the army of Alex- 
ander looked on from the shore witnessing its 
ravages in dismay. 

When the storm was over, and the first shock 
of chagrin and disappointment had passed from 
the minds of the men, Alexander prepared to 
resume the work with fresh vigor and energy. 
The men commenced repairing the pier and wid- 
ening it, so as to increase its strength and capac- 
ity. They dragged whole trees to the edges of 
it, and sunk them, branches and all, to the bot- 
tom, to form a sort of platform there, to prevent 
the stones from sinking into the slime. They 
built new towers and engines, covering them 
with green hides to make them fire-proof; and 
thus they were soon advancing again, and 
gradually drawing nearer to the city, and in a 



160 Alexander the Great. [B.C.333. 

Alexander collects a fleet. Warlike engines. 

more threatening and formidable manner than 
ever. 

Alexander, rinding that his efforts were im- 
peded very much by the ships of the Tyrians, 
determined on collecting and equipping a fleet 
of his own. This he did at Sidon, which was 
a town a short distance north of Tyre. He em- 
barked on board this fleet himself, and came 
down with it into the Tyrian seas. With this 
fleet he had various success. He chained many 
of the ships together, two and two, at a little 
distance apart, covering the inclosed space with 
a platform, on which the soldiers could stand to 
fight. The men also erected engines on these 
platforms to attack the city. These engines 
were of various kinds. There was what they 
called the battering ram, which was a long and 
very heavy beam of wood, headed with iron or 
brass. This beam was suspended by a chain 
in the middle, so that it could be swung back 
and forth by the soldiers, its head striking 
against the wall each time, by which means 
the wall would sometimes be soon battered down. 
They had also machines for throwing great 
stones, or beams of wood, by means of the elas- 
tic force of strong bars of wood, or of steel, or 
that of twisted ropes. The part of the machine 



B.C.333.] The Siege of Tyre. 161 

Double galleys. The women removed from Tyre. 

upon which the stone was placed would be 
drawn back by the united strength of many of 
the soldiers, and then, as it recovered itself when 
released, the stone would be thrown off into the 
air with prodigious velocity and force. 

Alexander's double galleys answered very 
well as long as the water was smooth ; but 
sometimes, when they were caught out in a 
swell, the rolling of the waves would rack and 
twist them so as to tear the platforms asun- 
der, and sink the men in the sea. Thus diffi- 
culties unexpected and formidable were contin- 
ually arising. Alexander, however, persevered 
through them all. The Tyrians, finding them- 
selves pressed more and more, and seeing that 
the dangers impending became more and more 
formidable every day, at length concluded to 
send a great number of the women and children 
away to Carthage, which was a great commer- 
cial city in Africa. They were determined not 
to submit to Alexander, but to carry their re- 
sistance to the very last extremity. And as 
the closing scenes of a siege, especially if the 
place is at last taken by storm, are awful be- 
yond description, they wished to save their wives, 
and daughters, and helpless babes from having 
to witness them. 

L 



162 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The siege advances. Undaunted courage of the Tyrians. 

In the mean time, as the siege advanced, the 
parties became more and more incensed against 
each other. They treated the captives which 
they took on either side with greater and great- 
er cruelty, each thinking that they were only 
retaliating worse injuries from the other. The 
Macedonians approached nearer and nearer. 
The resources of the unhappy city were gradu- 
ally cut off and its strength worn away. The 
engines approached nearer and nearer to the 
walls, until the battering rams bore directly 
upon them, and breaches began to be made. 
At length one great breach on the southern side 
was found to be "practicable," as they call it. 
Alexander began to prepare for the final assault, 
and the Tyrians saw before them the horrible 
prospect of being taken by storm. 

Still they would not submit. Submission 
would now have done but little good, though it 
might have saved some of the final horrors of 
the scene. Alexander had become greatly ex- 
asperated by the long resistance which the Tyr- 
ians had made. They probably could not now 
have averted destruction, but they might, per- 
haps, have prevented its coming upon them in 
so terrible a shape as the irruption of thirty 
thousand frantic and infuriated soldiers through 



B.C. 333. J The 


Siege 


of Tyre. 


1(53 


A breach made. 






The assault. 



the breaches in their walls to take their city by 
storm. 

The breach by which Alexander proposed to 
force his entrance was on the southern side. He 
prepared a number of ships, with platforms rais- 
ed upon them in such a manner that, on getting 
near the walls, they could be let down, and 
form a sort of bridge, over which the men could 
pass to the broken fragments of the wall, and 
thence ascend through the bleach above. 

The plan succeeded. The ships advanced to 
the proposed place of landing. The bridges 
were let down. The men crowded over them 
to the foot of the wall. They clambered up 
through the breach to the battlements above, 
although the Tyrians thronged the passage and 
made the most desperate resistance. Hundreds 
were killed by darts, and arrows, and falling 
stones, and their bodies tumbled into the sea. 
The others, paying no attention to their falling 
comrades, and drowning the horrid screams of 
the crushed and the dying with their own fran- 
tic shouts of rage and fury, pressed on up the 
broken wall till they reached the battlements 
above. The vast throng then rolled along upon 
the top of the wall till they came to stairways 
and slopes by which they could descend into the 



164 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Storming the city. Barbarous cruelties of Alexander. 

city, and, pouring down through all these ave- 
nues, they spread over the streets, and satiated 
the hatred and rage, which had been gathering 
strength for seven long months, in bursting into 
houses, and killing and destroying all that came 
in their way. Thus the city was stormed. 

After the soldiers were weary with the work 
of slaughtering the wretched inhabitants of the 
city, they found that many still remained alive, 
and Alexander tarnished the character for gen- 
erosity and forbearance for which he had thus 
far been distinguished by the cruelty with which 
he treated them. Some were executed, some 
thrown into the sea ; and it is even said that 
two thousand were crucified along the sea-shore. 
This may mean that their bodies were placed 
upon crosses after life had been destroyed by 
some more humane method than crucifixion. 
At any rate, we find frequent indications from 
this time that prosperity and power were be- 
ginning to exert their usual unfavorable influ- 
ence upon Alexander's character. He became 
haughty, imperious, and cruel. He lost the 
modesty and gentleness which seemed to char- 
acterize him in the earlier part of his life, and 
began to assume the moral character, as well 
us perform the exploits, of a military hero. 



B.C.333.] The Siege of Tyre. 165 

Change in Alexander's character. His harsh message to Darius. 

A good illustration of this is afforded by the 
answer that he sent to Darius, about the time 
of the storming of Tyre, in reply to a second 
communication which he had received from him 
proposing terms of peace. Darius offered him 
a very large sum of money for the ransom of 
his mother, wife, and child, and agreed to give 
up to him all the country he had conquered, in- 
cluding the whole territory west of the Euphra- 
tes. He also offered him his daughter Statira 
in marriage. He recommended to him to ac- 
cept these terms, and be content with the pos- 
sessions he had already acquired ; that he could 
not expect to succeed, if he should try, in cross- 
ing the mighty rivers of the East, which were 
in the way of his march toward the Persian do- 
minions. 

Alexander replied, that if he wished to mar- 
ry his daughter he could do it without his con- 
sent ; as to the ransom, he was not in want of 
money ; in respect to Darius's offering to give 
him up all west of the Euphrates, it was ab- 
surd for a man to speak of giving what was no 
longer his own ; that he had crossed too many 
seas in his military expeditions, since he left 
Macedon, to feel any concern about the rivers 
that he might find in his way ; and that he 



166 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

Alexander's reply to Parmenio. The hero rises, but the man sinks. 

should continue to pursue Darius wherever he 
might retreat in search of safety and protection, 
and he had no fear but that he should find and 
conquer him at last. 

It was a harsh and cruel message to send to 
the unhappy monarch whom he had already so 
greatly injured. Parmenio advised him to ac- 
cept Darius's offers. " I would," said he, " if 
I were Alexander." "Yes," said Alexander, 
" and so would I if I were Parmenio." What 
a reply from a youth of twenty-two to a vener- 
able general of sixty, who had been so tried and 
faithful a friend, and so efficient a coadjutor both 
to his father and to himself, for so many years. 

The siege and storming of Tyre has always 
been considered one of the greatest of Alexan- 
der's exploits. The boldness, the perseverance, 
the indomitable energy which he himself and 
all his army manifested, during the seven months 
of their Herculean toil, attracted the admiration 
of the world. And yet we find our feelings of 
sympathy for his character, and interest in his 
fate, somewhat alienated by the indications of 
pride, imperiousness, and cruelty which begin 
to appear. While he rises in our estimation as 
a military hero, he begins to sink somewhat as 
a man. 



B.C.333.] The Siege of Tyre. 16V 

Lysituachus. Alexander's adventure in the mountains. 

And yet the change was not sudden. He 
bore during the siege his part in the privations 
and difficulties which the soldiers had to en- 
dure ; and the dangers to which they had to be 
exposed, he was always willing to share. One 
night he was out with a party upon the mount- 
ains. Among his few immediate attendants 
was Lysimachus, one of his former teachers, 
who always loved to accompany him at such 
times. Lysimachus was advanced in life, and 
somewhat infirm, and consequently could not 
keep up with the rest in the march. Alexan- 
der remained with Lysimachus, and ordered the 
rest to go on. The road at length became so 
rugged that they had to dismount from their 
horses and walk. Finally they lost their way, 
and found themselves obliged to stop for the 
night. They had no fire. They saw, howev- 
er, at a distance, some camp fires blazing which 
belonged to the barbarian tribes against whom 
the expedition was directed. Alexander went 
to the nearest one. There were two men lying 
by it, who had been stationed to take care of it. 
He advanced stealthily to them and killed them 
both, probably while they were asleep. He then 
took a brand from their fire, carried it back to 
his own encampment, where he made a blazing 



±68 Alexander the Great. [B.C.333. 

What credit is to be given to the adventure. 

fire for himself and Lysimachus, and they passed 
the night in comfort and safety. This is the 
story. How far we are to give credit to it, each 
reader must judge for himself. One thing is 
certain, however, that there are many military 
heroes of whom such stories would not be even 
fabricated. 



B.C. 332.] Alexander in Egypt. 163 

Alexander in Judea. Josephus, and the character of his writings. 



Chapter VIII. 

Alexander in Egypt. 

AFTER completing the subjugation of Tyre, 
Alexander commenced his march for 
Egypt. His route led him through Judea. 
The time was about three hundred years before 
the birth of Christ, and, of course, this passage 
of the great conqueror through the land of Isra- 
el took place between the historical periods of 
the Old Testament and of the New, so that no 
account of it is given in the sacred volume. 

There was a Jewish writer named Josephus, 
who lived and wrote a few years after Christ, 
and, of course, more than three hundred years 
after Alexander. He wrote a history of the 
Jews, which is a very entertaining book to read ; 
but he liked so much to magnify the importance 
of the events in the history of his country, and 
to embellish them with marvelous and super- 
natural incidents, that his narratives have not 
always been received with implicit faith. Jo- 
sephus says that, as Alexander passed through 
Palestine, he went to pay a visit to Jerusalem. 



j'70 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 



Alexander's visit to Jerusalem. Josephus's account of it 

The circumstances of this visit, according to his 
account, were these. 

The city of Tyre, before Alexander besieged 
it, as it lived entirely by commerce, and was 
surrounded by the sea, had to depend on the 
neighboring countries for a supply of food. The 
people were accordingly accustomed to purchase 
grain in Phoenicia, in Judea, and in Egypt, and 
transport it by their ships to the island. Alex- 
ander, in the same manner, when besieging the 
city, found that he must depend upon the neigh- 
boring countries for supplies of food ; and he ac- 
cordingly sent requisitions for such supplies to 
several places, and, among others, to Judea. The 
Jews, as Josephus says, refused to send any 
such supplies, saying that it would be incon- 
sistent with fidelity to Darius, under whose gov- 
ernment they were. 

Alexander took no notice of this reply at the 
time, being occupied with the siege of Tyre; 
but, as soon as that city was taken, and he was 
ready to pass through Judea, he directed his 
march toward Jerusalem with the intention of 
destroying the city. 

Now the chief magistrate at Jerusalem at 
this time, the one who had the command of the 
city, ruling it, of course, under a general re- 



B.C. 332.] Alexander in Egypt. 171 

The high priest Jaddus. His dream. 

sponsibility to the Persian government, was the 
high priest. His name was Jaddus. In the 
time of Christ, about three hundred years after 
this, the name of the high-priest, as the reader 
will recollect, was Caiaphas. Jaddus and all 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem were very much 
alarmed. They knew not what to do. The 
siege and capture of Tyre had impressed them 
all with a strong sense of Alexander's terrible 
energy and martial power, and they began to 
anticipate certain destruction. 

Jaddus caused great sacrifices to be offered 
to Almighty God, and public and solemn pray- 
ers were made, to implore' his guidance and 
protection. The next day after these services, 
he told the people that they had nothing to fear. 
God had appeared to him in a dream, and di- 
rected him what to do. " We are not to resist 
the conqueror," said he, "but to go forth to 
meet him and welcome him. We are to strew 
the city with flowers, and adorn it as for a fes- 
tive celebration. The priests are to be dressed 
in their pontifical robes and go forth, and the 
inhabitants are to follow them in a civic pro- 
cession. In this way we are to go out to meet 
Alexander as he advances — and all will be well." 

These directions were followed. Alexander 



172 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 

The procession of priests. Alexander's account of his dream. 

was coming on with a full determination to de- 
stroy the city. When, however, he saw this 
procession, and came near enough to distinguish 
the appearance and dress of the high priest, he 
stopped, seemed surprised and pleased, and ad- 
vanced toward him with an air of the profound- 
est deference and respect. He seemed to pay 
him almost religious homage and adoration. 
Every one was astonished. Parmenio asked 
him for an explanation. Alexander made the 
following extraordinary statement : 

" When I was in Macedon, before setting out 
on this expedition, while I was revolving the 
subject in my mind, musing day after day on 
the means of conquering Asia, one night I had 
a remarkable dream. In my dream this very 
priest appeared before me, dressed just as he is 
now. He exhorted me to banish every fear, to 
cross the Hellespont boldly, and to push forward 
into the heart of Asia. He said that God would 
march at the head of my army, and give me the 
victory over all the Persians. I recognize this 
priest as the same person that appeared to me 
then. He has the same countenance, the same 
dress, the same stature, the same air. It is 
through his encouragement and aid that I am 
here, and I am ready to worship and adore the 
God whose service he administers." 



B.C. 332.] Alexander in Egypt. 173 

Alexander joins in the Jewish ceremonies. Prophecies of Daniel. 

Alexander joined the high priest in the pro- 
cession, and they returned to Jerusalem togeth- 
er. There Alexander united with them and 
with the Jews of the city in the celebration of 
religious rites, by offering sacrifices and obla- 
tions in the Jewish manner. The writings 
which are now printed together in our Bibles, 
as the Old Testament, were, in those days, writ- 
ten separately on parchment rolls, and kept in 
the temple. The priests produced from the 
rolls the one containing the prophecies of Dan- 
iel, and they read and interpreted some of these 
prophecies to Alexander, which they considered 
to have reference to him, though written many 
hundred years before. Alexander was, as Jose- 
phus relates, very much pleased at the sight of 
these ancient predictions, and the interpretation 
put upon them by the priests. He assured the 
Jews that they should be protected in the exer- 
cise of all their rights, and especially in their 
religious worship, and he also promised them 
that he would take their brethren who resided 
in Media and Babylon under his special charge 
when he should come into possession of those pla- 
ces. These Jews of Media and Babylon were 
the descendants of captives which had been car- 
ried away from their native land in former wars. 



174 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332 

Doubts about Alexander's visit. Siege of Gaza. 

Such is the story which Josephus relates. 
The Greek historians, on the other hand, make 
no mention of this visit to Jerusalem ; and some 
persons think that it was never made, but that 
the story arose and was propagated from gen- 
eration to generation among the Jews, through 
the influence of their desire to magnify the im- 
portance and influence of their worship, and 
that Josephus incorporated the account into his 
history without sufficiently verifying the facts. 

However it may be in regard to Jerusalem, 
Alexander was delayed at Gaza, which, as may 
be seen upon the map, is on the shore of the 
Mediterranean Sea. It was a place of consid- 
erable commerce and wealth, and was, at this 
time, under the command of a governor whom 
Darius had stationed there. His name was 
Betis. Betis refused to surrender the place. 
Alexander stopped to besiege it, and the siege 
delayed him two months. He was very much 
exasperated at this, both against Betis and 
against the city. 

His unreasonable anger was very much in- 
creased by a wound which he received. He 
was near a mound which his soldiers had been 
constructing near the city, to place engines upon 
for an attack upon the Walls, when an arrow, 



B.C.332.] Alexander in Egypt. 175 

Alexander receives a wound. Gaza taken by storm. 

shot from one of the engines upon the walls, 
struck him in the breast. It penetrated his ar- 
mor, and wounded him deeply in the shoulder. 
The wound was very painful for some time, and 
the suffering which he endured from it only add- 
ed fuel to the flame of his anger against the city. 

At last breaches were made in the walls, and 
the place was taken by storm. Alexander treat- 
ed the wretched captives with extreme cruelty. 
He cut the garrison to pieces, and sold the in- 
habitants to slavery. As for Betis, he dealt 
with him in a manner almost too horrible to be 
described. The reader will recollect that Achil- 
les, at the siege of Troy, after killing Hector, 
dragged his dead body around the walls of the 
city. Alexander, growing more cruel as he be- 
came more accustomed to war and bloodshed, 
had been intending to imitate this example so 
soon as he could find an enemy worthy of such 
a fate. He now determined to carry his plan 
into execution with Betis. He ordered him into 
nis presence. A few years before, he would have 
rewarded him for his fidelity in his master's serv- 
ice ; but now, grown selfish, hard hearted, and 
revengeful, he looked upon him with a counte- 
nance full of vindictive exultation, and said, 

" You are not going to die the simple death 



176 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 

Alexander's brutality to the brave Betis. Rich treasures. 

that you desire. You have got the worst tor- 
ments that revenge can invent to suffer." 

Betis did not reply, but looked upon Alexan- 
der with a calm, and composed, and unsubdued 
air, which incensed the conqueror more and 
more. 

" Observe his dumb arrogance," said Alexan- 
der ; '' ; but I will conquer him. I will show 
him that I can draw groans from him, if noth- 
ing else." 

He then ordered holes to be made through the 
heels of his unhappy captive, and, passing a rope 
through them, had the body fastened to a char- 
iot, and dragged about the city till no life re- 
mained. 

Alexander found many rich treasures in Gaza. 
He sent a large part of them to his mother Oly m- 
pias, whom he had left in Macedon. Alexan- 
der's affection for his mother seems to have been 
more permanent than almost any other good 
trait in his character. He found, in addition to 
other stores of valuable merchandise, a large 
quantity of frankincense and myrrh. These are 
gums which were brought from Arabia, and 
were very costly. They were used chiefly in 
making offerings and in burning incense to the 
gods. 



B.C. 332.] Alex a n der in E g y p t. 1 77 

.Story of Alexander's youth. Pelusium. 

When Alexander was a young man in Mace- 
don, before his father's death, he was one day- 
present at the offering of sacrifices, and one of 
his teachers and guardians, named Leonnatus, 
who was standing by, thought he was rather 
profuse in his consumption of frankincense and 
myrrh. He was taking it up by handfuls and 
throwing it upon the fire. Leonnatus reproved 
him for this extravagance, and told him that 
when he became master of the countries where 
these costly gums were procured, he might be 
as prodigal of them as he pleased, but that in 
the mean time it would be proper for him to be 
more prudent and economical. Alexander re- 
membered this reproof, and, finding vast stores 
of these expensive gums in Gaza, he sent the 
whole quantity to Leonnatus, telling him that 
he sent Him this abundant supply that he might 
not have occasion to be so reserved and sparing 
for the future in his sacrifices to the gods. 

After this conquest and destruction of Gaza, 
Alexander continued his march southward to 
the frontiers of Egypt. He reached these fron- 
tiers at the city of Pelusium. The Egyptians 
had been under the Persian dominion, but they 
abhorred it, and were very ready to submit to 
Alexander's sway. They sent embassadors to 
M 



178 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 

Memphis. Fertility of Egypt. 

meet him upon the frontiers. The governors of 
the cities, as he advanced into the country, find- 
ing that it would be useless to resist, and warned 
by the terrible example of Thebes, Tyre, and 
Gaza, surrendered to him as fast as he sum- 
moned them. 

He went to Memphis. Memphis was a great 
and powerful city, situated in what was called 
Lower Egypt, on the Nile, just above where 
the branches which form the mouths of the Nile 
separate from the main stream. All that part 
of Egypt is flat country, having been formed by 
the deposits brought down by the Nile. Such 
land is called alluvial ; it is always level, and, 
as it consists of successive deposits from the 
turbid waters of the river, made in the success- 
ive inundations, it forms always a very rich 
soil, deep and inexhaustible, and is, of course, 
extremely fertile. Egypt has been celebrated 
for its unexampled fertility from the earliest 
times. It waves with fields of corn and grain, 
and is adorned with groves of the most luxuri- 
ant growth and richest verdure. 

It is only, however, so far as the land is formed 
by the deposits of the Nile, that this scene of 
verdure and beauty extends. On the east it is 
bounded by ranges of barren and rocky hills, 



B.C.332.] Alexander in Egypt. 179 

Deserts of Egypt Cause of their sterility. 

and on the west by vast deserts, consisting of 
moving sands, from which no animal or vegeta- 
ble life can derive the means of existence. The 
reason of this sterility seems to be the absence 
of water. The geological formation of the land 
is such that it furnishes few springs of water, 
and no streams, and in that climate it seldom 
or never rains. If there is water, the most bar- 
ren sands will clothe themselves with some spe- 
cies of vegetation, which, in its decay, will form 
a soil that will nourish more and more fully each 
succeeding generation of plants. But in the ab- 
sence of water, any surface of earth will soon 
become a barren sand. The wind will drive 
away every thing imponderable, leaving only 
the heavy sands, to drift in storms, like fields of 
snow. 

Among these African deserts, however, there 
are some fertile spots. They are occasioned by 
springs which arise in little dells, and which 
saturate the ground with moisture for some dis- 
tance around them. The water from these 
springs flows for some distance, in many cases, 
in a little stream, before it is finally lost and 
absorbed in the sands. The whole tract under 
the influence of this irrigation clothes itself 
with verdure. Trees grow up to shade it. It 



ISO Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 



The Great Oasis. Oasis of Siwah. Jupiter Ammon. 

forms a spot whose beauty, absolutely great, is 
heightened by the contrast which it presents to 
the gloomy and desolate desert by which it is 
surrounded. Such a green spot in the desert 
is called an Oasis. They are the resort and the 
refuge of the traveler and the pilgrim, who seek 
shelter and repose upon them in their weary 
journeys over the trackless wilds. 

Nor must it be supposed that these islands of 
fertility and verdure are always small. Some 
of them are very extensive, and contain a con- 
siderable population. There is one called the 
Great Oasis, which consists of a chain of fer- 
tile tracts of about a hundred miles in length. 
Another, called the Oasis of Siwah, has, in mod- 
ern times, a population of eight thousand souls. 
This last is situated not far from the shores of 
the Mediterranean Sea — at least not very far ; 
perhaps two or three hundred miles — and it was 
a very celebrated spot in Alexander's day. 

The cause of its celebrity was that it was the 
seat and center of the worship of a famous deity 
called Jupiter Ammon. This god was said to 
be the son of Jupiter, though there were all 
sorts of stories about his origin and early histo- 
ry. He had the form of a ram, and was wor- 
shiped by the people of Egypt, and also by the 



B.C.332.] Alexander in Egypt. 181 

Temple of Jupiter Amnion. Alexander aspires to divine honors. 

Carthaginians, and by the people of Northern 
Africa generally. His temple was in this Oasis, 
and it was surrounded by a considerable popu- 
lation, which was supported, in a great degree, 
by the expenditures of the worshipers who came 
as pilgrims, or otherwise, to sacrifice at his 
shrine. 

It is said that Alexander, finding that the va- 
rious objects of human ambition which he had 
been so rapidly attaining by his victories and 
conquests for the past few years were insuffi- 
cient to satisfy him, began now to aspire for 
some supernatural honors, and he accordingly 
conceived the design of having himself declared 
to be the son of a god. The heroes of Homer 
were sons of the gods. Alexander envied them 
the fame and honor which this distinction gave 
them in the opinion of mankind. He determ- 
ined to visit the temple of Jupiter Ammon in 
the Oasis of Siwah, and to have the declaration 
of his divine origin made by the priests there. 

He proceeded, accordingly, to the mouth of 
the Nile, where he found a very eligible place, 
as he believed, for the foundation of a commer- 
cial city, and he determined to build it on his 
return. Thence he marched along the shores 
of the Mediterranean, toward the west, until 



182 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 

Alexander crosses the desert. Its sublimity. 

he reached a place called ParsBtonium, which 
will be found upon the map. He then left the 
sea-shore and marched south, striking at once 
into the desert when he left the sea. He was 
accompanied by a small detachment of his army 
as an escort, and they journeyed eleven days be- 
fore they reached the Oasis. 

They had a variety of perilous adventures in 
crossing the desert. For the first two days the 
soldiers were excited and pleased with the nov- 
elty and romantic grandeur of the scene. The 
desert has, in some degree, the sublimity of the 
ocean. There is the same boundless expanse, 
the same vast, unbroken curve of the horizon, 
the same tracklessness, the same solitude. There 
is, in addition, a certain profound and awful still- 
ness and repose, which imparts to it a new ele- 
ment of impressiveness and grandeur. Its dread 
and solemn silence is far more imposing and 
sublime than the loudest thunders of the seas. 

The third day the soldiers began to be weary 
of such a march. They seemed afraid to pene- 
trate any further into such boundless and terri- 
ble solitudes. They had been obliged to bring 
water with them in goat-skins, which were car- 
ried by camels. The camel is the only beast 
of burden which can be employed upon the des- 



B.C.332.] Alexander in Egypt. 183 

The camel. Scarcity of water. 

erts. There is a peculiarity in the anatomical 
structure of this animal by which he can take 
in, at one time, a supply of water for many 
days. He is formed, in fact, for the desert. .In 
his native state he lives in the oases and in the 
valleys. He eats the herbage which grows 
among the rocks and hills that alternate with 
the great sandy plains in all these countries. 
In passing from one of his scanty pasturages to 
another, he has long journeys to make across 
the sands, where, though he can find food here 
and there, there is no water. Providence has 
formed him with a structure adapted to this ex- 
igency, and by means of it he becomes extreme- 
ly useful to man. 

The soldiers of Alexander did not take a suf- 
ficient supply of water, and were reduced, at 
one time, to great distress. They were relieved, 
the story says, by a rain, though rain is ex- 
tremely unusual in the deserts. Alexander at- 
tributed this supply to the miraculous interpo- 
sition of Heaven. They catch the rain, in such 
cases, with cloths, and afterward wring out the 
water ; though in this instance, as the histori- 
ans of that day say, the soldiers did not wait 
for this tardy method of supply, but the whole 
detachment held back their heads and opened 



184 Alexander the G 



re at. [B.C. 332. 



Sand storms in the desert. Arrival at the Oasis. 

their mouths, to catch the drops of rain as they 
fell. 

There was another danger to which they 
were exposed in their march, more terrible even 
than the scarcity of water. It was that of be- 
ing overwhelmed in the clouds of sand and dust 
which sometimes swept over the desert in gales 
of wind. These were called sand-storms. The 
fine sand flew, in such cases, in driving clouds, 
which filled the eyes and stopped the breath of 
the traveler, and finally buried his body under 
its drifts when he laid down to die. A large 
army of fifty thousand men, under a former Per- 
sian king, had been overwhelmed and destroyed 
in this way, some years before, in some of the 
Egyptian deserts. Alexander's soldiers had 
heard of this calamity, and they were threat- 
ened sometimes with the same fate. They, 
however, at length escaped all the dangers of 
the desert, and began to approach the green and 
fertile land of the Oasis. 

The change from the barren and dismal lone- 
liness of the sandy plains to the groves and the 
villages, the beauty and the verdure of the Oa- 
sis, was delightful both to Alexander himself 
and to all his men. The priests at the great 
temple of Jupiter Ammon received them all 






B.C. 332.] Alexander in Egypt. 



185 



Magnificent ceremonies. 



Return to Memphis. 



with marks of great distinction and honor. The 
most solemn and magnificent ceremonies were 
performed, with offerings, oblations, and sacri- 
fices. The priests, after conferring in secret 
with the god in the temple, came out with the 
annunciation that Alexander was indeed his 
son, and they paid him, accordingly, almost di- 
vine honors. He is supposed to have bribed 
them to do this by presents and pay. Alexan- 
der returned at length to Memphis, and in all 
his subsequent orders and decrees he styled him- 
self Alexander king, son of Jupiter Ammon. 

But, though Alexander was thus willing to 
impress his ignorant soldiers with a mysterious 
veneration for his fictitious divinity, he was not 
deceived himself on the subject ; he sometimes 
even made his pretensions to the divine charac- 
ter a subject of joke. For instance, they one 
day brought him in too little fire in the focus. 
The focus, or fire-place used in Alexander's day, 




A Focus. 



186 Alexander the Great. [B.C.332. 

Alexander jokes about his divinity. Founding of Alexandria. 

was a small metallic stand, on which the fire was 
built. It was placed wherever convenient in 
the tent, and the smoke escaped above. They 
had put upon the focus too little fuel one day 
when they brought it in. Alexander asked the 
officer to let him have either some wood or some 
frankincense ; they might consider him, he said, 
as a god or as a man, whichever they pleased, 
but he wished to be treated either like one or 
the other. 

On his return from the Oasis Alexander car- 
ried forward his plan of building a city at the 
mouth of the Nile. He drew the plan, it is 
said, with his own hands. He superintended 
the constructions, and invited artisans and me- 
chanics from all nations to come and reside in it. 
They accepted the invitation in great numbers, 
and the city soon became large, and wealthy, 
and powerful. It was intended as a commer- 
cial post, and the wisdom and sagacity which 
Alexander manifested in the selection of the site, 
is shown by the fact that the city rose immedi- 
ately to the rank of the great seat of trade and 
commerce for all those shores, and has contin- 
ued to hold that rank now for twenty centuries. 

There was an island near the coast, opposite 
the city, called the island of Pharos. They 



B.C. 332.] Alexander in Egypt. 187 

Island of Pharos. The light-house. 

built a most magnificent light-house upon one 
extremity of this island, which was considered, 
in those days, one of the wonders of the world. 
It was said to be five hundred feet high. This 
may have been an exaggeration. At any rate, 
it was celebrated throughout the world in its 
day, and its existence and its greatness made an 
impression on the human mind which has not 
yet been effaced. Pharos is the name for light- 
house, in many languages, to the present day. 
In building the city of Alexandria, Alexander 
laid aside, for a time, his natural and proper 
character, and assumed a mode of action in 
strong contrast with the ordinary course of his 
life. He was, throughout most of his career, a 
destroyer. He roamed over the world to inter- 
rupt commerce, to break in upon and disturb 
the peaceful pursuits of industry, to batter down 
city walls, and burn dwellings, and kill men. 
This is the true vocation of a hero and a con- 
queror ; but at the mouth of the Nile Alexander 
laid aside this character. He turned his ener- 
gies to the work of planning means to do good. 
He constructed a port; he built warehouses j 
he provided accommodations and protection for 
merchants and artisans. The nations exchang- 
ed their commodities far more easily and exten- 



188 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 332. 

Alexandria the only remaining monument of Alexander's greatness. 

sively in consequence of these facilities, and the 
means of comfort and enjoyment were multi- 
plied and increased in thousands and thousands 
of huts in the great cities of Egypt, and in the 
rural districts along the banks of the Nile. The 
good, too, which he thus commenced, has per- 
petuated itself. Alexandria has continued to 
fulfill its beneficent function for two thousand 
years. It is the only monument of his great- 
ness which remains. Every thing else which 
he accomplished perished when he died. How 
much better would it have been for the happi- 
ness of mankind, as well as for his own true 
fame and glory, if doing good had been the rule 
of his life instead of the exception. 



B.C.33L] The Great Victory. 189 

Alexander makes Tyre his rendezvous. Festivities. 



Chapter IX. 
The Great Victory. 

ALL the western part of Asia was now in 
Alexander's power. He was undisputed 
master of Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Judea, and 
Egypt. He returned from Egypt to Tyre, leav- 
ing governors to rule in his name in all the con- 
quered provinces. The injuries which had been 
' done to Tyre, during the siege and at the assault, 
were repaired, and it was again a wealthy, pow- 
erful, and prosperous city. Alexander rested 
and refreshed his army there, and spent some 
weeks in most splendid festivities and rejoicings. 
The princes and potentates of all the neighbor- 
ing countries assembled to partake of his hospi- 
tality, to be entertained by the games, the plays, 
the spectacles, and the feastings, and to unite 
in swelling his court and doing him honor. In 
a word, he was the general center of attraction 
for all eyes, and the object of universal homage. 
All this time, however, he was very far from 
being satisfied, or feeling that his work was 
done. Darius, whom he considered his great 



190 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Alexander prepares to march east. The captive queens. 

enemy, was still in the field unsubdued. He 
had retreated across the Euphrates, and was 
employed in assembling a vast collection of for- 
ces from all the Eastern nations which were un- 
der his sway, to meet Alexander in the final 
contest. Alexander therefore made arrange- 
ments at Tyre for the proper government of the 
various kingdoms and provinces which he had 
already conquered, and then began to prepare 
for marching eastward with the main body of 
his army. 

During all this time the ladies of Darius's 
family, who had been taken captive at Issus, 
had been retained in captivity, and made to ac- 
company Alexander's army in its marches. Al- 
exander refused to accede to any of the plans 
and propositions which Darius made and offered 
for the redemption of his wife and mother, but 
insisted on retaining them as his prisoners. He, 
however, treated them with respect and high 
consideration. He provided them with royal 
tents of great magnificence, and had them con- 
veyed from place to place, when his army mov- 
ed, with all the royal state to which they had 
been accustomed when in the court of Darius. 

It has been generally thought a proof of no- 
bleness of spirit and generosity in Alexander 



B.C. 331.] The Great Victory. 191 

Alexander's treatment of the queens. Death of Statira. 

that he treated his captives in this manner. It 
would seem, however, that true generosity would 
have prompted the restoration of these unhappy 
and harmless prisoners to the husband and fa- 
ther who mourned their separation from him, 
and their cruel sufferings, with bitter grief. It 
is more probable, therefore, that policy, and a 
regard for his own aggrandizement, rather than 
compassion for the suffering, led him to honor 
his captive queens. It was a great glory to 
him, in a martial point of view, to have such 
trophies of his victory in his train; and, of 
course, the more highly he honored the person- 
ages, the more glorious the trophy appeared. 
Accordingly, Alexander did every thing in his 
power to magnify the importance of his royal 
captives, by the splendor of their retinue, and 
| the pomp and pageantry with which he invest- 
ed their movements. 

A short time after leaving Tyre, on the 
march westward, Statira, the wife of Darius, 
was taken suddenly ill and died. # The tidings 
were immediately brought to Alexander, and 
he repaired without delay to Sysigambis's tent. 



* It was the birth of an infant that caused her death, ex- 
hausted and worn down, as she doubtless was, by her cap- 
tivity and her sorrows. 



192 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Agony of Sysigambia. Grief of Darius. 

Sysigambis was the mother of Darius. She 
was in the greatest agony of grief. She was 
lying upon the floor of her tent, surrounded by 
the ladies of her court, and entirely overwhelm- 
ed with sorrow. Alexander did all in his power 
to calm and comfort her. 

One of the officers of Queen Statira's house- 
hold* made his escape from the camp immedi- 
ately after his mistress's death, and fled across 
the country to Darius, to carry him the heavy 
tidings. Darius was overwhelmed with afflic- 
tion. The officer, however, in farther inter- 
views, gave him such an account of the kind 
and respectful treatment which the ladies had 
received from Alexander, during all the time of 
their captivity, as greatly to relieve his mind, 
and to afford him a high degree of comfort and 
consolation. He expressed a very strong sense 
of gratitude to Alexander for his generosity and 
kindness, and said that if his kingdom of Persia 
must be conquered, he sincerely wished that it 
might fall into the hands of such a conqueror as 
Alexander. 

By looking at the map at the commencement 
of the volume, it will be seen that the Tigris 

* A eunuch, a sort of officer employed in Eastern nations 
in attendance upon ladies of high raiiK. 



B.C.331.] The Great Victory. 193 

Alexander crosses the Euphrates. Darius crosses the Tigris. 

and the Euphrates are parallel streams, flowing 
through the heart of the western part of Asia 
toward the southeast, and emptying into the 
Persian Gulf. The country between these two 
rivers, which was extremely populous and fer- 
tile, was called Mesopotamia. Darius had col- 
lected an immense army here. The various de- 
tachments filled all the plains of Mesopotamia. 
Alexander turned his course a little northward, 
intending to pass the River Euphrates at a fa- 
mous ancient crossing at Thapsacus, which may 
be seen upon the map. When he arrived at 
this place he found a small Persian army there. 
They, however, retired as he approached. Al- 
exander built two bridges across the river, and 
passed his army safely over. 

In the mean time, Darius, with his enormous 
host, passed across the Tigris, and moved to- 
ward the northward, along the eastern side of 
the river. He had to cross the various branch- 
es of the Tigris as he advanced. At one of 
them, called the Lycus, which may also be seen 
upon the map, there was a bridge. It took the 
vast host which Darius had collected five days 
to pass this bridge. 

While Darius had been thus advancing to 
the northward into the latitude where he knew 
N 



194 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Alexander reaches the Tigris. He crosses the river. 

that Alexander must cross the rivers, Alexan- 
der himself, and his small but compact and fear- 
less body of Grecian troops, were moving east- 
ward, toward the same region to which Darius's 
line of march was tending. Alexander at length 
reached the Tigris. He was obliged to ford this 
stream. The banks were steep and the current 
was rapid, and the men were in great danger of 
being swept away. To prevent this danger, 
the ranks, as they advanced, linked their arms 
together, so that each man might be sustained 
by his comrades. They held their shields above 
their heads to keep them from the water. Al- 
exander waded like the rest, though he kept in 
front, and reached the bank before the others. 
Standing there, he indicated to the advancing 
column, by gesticulation, where to land, the 
noise of the water being too great to allow his 
voice to be heard. To see him standing there, 
safely landed, and with an expression of confi- 
dence and triumph in his attitude and air, 
awakened fresh energy in the heart of every 
soldier in the columns which were crossing the 
stream. 

Notwithstanding this encouragement, how- 
ever, the passage of the troops and the landing 
on the bank produced a scene of greet confusion. 






B.C. 331.] The Great Victory. 195 

Fording the river. The passage effected. 

Many of the soldiers had tied up a portion of 
their clothes in bundles, which they held above 
their heads, together with their arms, as they 
waded along through the swift current of the 
stream. They, however, found it impossible to 
carry these bundles, but had to abandon them 
at last in order to save themselves, as they 
staggered along through deep and rapid water, 
and over a concealed bottom of slippery stones. 
Thousands of these bundles, mingled with spears, 
darts, and every other sort of weapon that would 
float, were swept down by the current, to im- 
pede and embarrass the men who were passing 
below. 

At length, however, the men themselves suc- 
ceeded in getting over in safety, though a large 
quantity of arms and of clothing was lost. 
There was no enemy upon the bank to oppose 
them. Darius could not, in fact, well meet 
and oppose Alexander in his attempt to cross 
the river, because he could not determine at 
what point he would probably make the at- 
tempt, in season to concentrate so large an army 
to oppose him. Alexander's troops, being a 
comparatively small and compact body, and be- 
ing accustomed to move with great promptness 
and celerity, could easily evade any attempt of 






196 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Plan of Darius. The plain of Arbela. 

such an unwieldy mass of forces to oppose his 
crossing at any particular point upon the stream. 
At any rate, Darius did not make any such at- 
tempt, and Alexander had no difficulties to en- 
counter in crossing the Tigris other than the 
physical obstacles presented by the current of 
the stream. 

Darius's plan was, therefore, not to intercept 
Alexander on his march, but to choose some 
great and convenient battle-field, where he 
could collect his forces, and marshal them ad- 
vantageously, and so await an attack there. 
He knew very well that his enemy would seek 
him out, wherever he was, and, consequently, 
that he might choose his position. He found 
such a field in an extensive plain at Guagame- 
la, not far from the city of Arbela. The spot 
has received historical immortality under the 
name of the plain of Arbela. 

Darius was several days in concentrating his 
vast armies upon this plain. He constructed 
encampments ; he leveled the inequalities which 
would interfere with the movements of his great 
bodies of cavalry ; he guarded the approaches, 
too, as much as possible. There is a little in- 
strument used in war called a caltrop* It 

* It receives its name from a kind of thistle called the caltrop. 



B.C. 331.1 T n k C« h k a t V i c t o r y. 



10; 



The caltrop. 



Its use in war. 



consists of a small ball of iron, with several 
sharp points projecting from it one or two 
inches each way. If these instruments are 




The Caltrop. 

thrown upon the ground at random, one of the 
points must necessarily be upward, and the 
horses that tread upon them are lamed and dis- 
abled at once. Darius caused caltrops to be 
scattered in the grass and along the roads, 
wherever the army of Alexander would be like- 
ly to approach his troops on the field of battle. 
Alexander, having crossed the river, encamp- 
ed for a day or two on the banks, to rest and 
refresh, and to rearrange his army. While 
here, the soldiers were one night thrown into 
consternation by an eclipse of the moon. When T 



198 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Eclipse of the moon. Consternation of Alexander's army. 

ever an eclipse of the moon takes place, it is, 
of course, when the moon is full, so that the 
eclipse is always a sudden, and, among an ig- 
norant people, an unexpected waning of the orb 
in the height of its splendor ; and as such peo- 
ple know not the cause of the phenomenon, 
they are often extremely terrified. Alexander's 
soldiers were thrown into consternation by the 
eclipse. They considered it the manifestation 
of the displeasure of Heaven at their presump- 
tuous daring in crossing such rivers, and pene- 
trating to such a distance to invade the terri- 
tories of another king. 

In fact, the men were predisposed to fear. 
Having wandered to a vast distance from home, 
having passed over such mountains and deserts, 
and now, at last, having crossed a deep and dan- 
gerous river, and thrown themselves into the 
immediate vicinity of a foe ten times as numer- 
ous as themselves, it was natural that they 
should feel some misgivings. And when, at 
night, impressed with the sense of solemnity 
which night always imparts to strange and 
novel scenes, they looked up to the bright round 
moon, pleased with the expression of cheerful- 
ness and companionship which beams always 
in her light, to find her suddenly waning, chang- 



B.C. 331.] The Ureat Victory. 199 

Emotions produced by an eclipse. Its sublimity. 

ing her form, withdrawing her bright beams, 
and looking down upon them with a lurid and 
murky light, it was not surprising that they felt 
an emotion of terror. In fact, there is always 
an element of terror in the emotion excited by 
looking upon an eclipse, which an instinctive 
feeling of the heart inspires. It invests the 
spectacle with a solemn grandeur. It holds the 
spectator, however cultivated and refined, in si- 
lence while he gazes at it. It mingles with a 
scientific appreciation of the vastness of the 
movements and magnitudes by which the effect 
is produced, and while the one occupies the in- 
tellect, the other impresses the soul. The mind 
that has lost, through its philosophy, the power 
of feeling this emotion of awe in such scenes, 
has sunk, not risen. Its possessor has made 
himself inferior, not superior, to the rest of his 
species, by having paralyzed one of his suscep- 
tibilities of pleasure. To him an eclipse is only 
curious and wonderful ; to others it is sublime. 
The soldiers of Alexander were extremely ter- 
rified. A great panic spread throughout the en- 
campment. Alexander himself, instead of at- 
tempting to allay their fears by reasoning, or 
treating them as of no importance, immediately 
gave the subject his most serious attention. He 



^00 Alexander the Gkeat. [B.C. 331. 

Measures taken by Alexander to allay the fears of the soldiers. 



called together the soothsayers, and directed them 
to consult together, and let him know what this 
great phenomenon portended. This mere com- 
mitting of the subject to the attention of the 
soothsayers had a great effect among all the 
soldiers of the army. It calmed them. It 
changed their agitation and terror into a feel- 
mg of suspense, in awaiting the answer of the 
soothsayers, which was far less painful and dan- 
gerous ; and at length, when the answer came, 
it allayed their anxiety and fear altogether. 
The soothsayers said that the sun was on Al- 
exander's side, and the moon on that of the Per- 
sians, and that this sudden waning of her light 
foreshadowed the defeat and destruction which 
the Persians were about to undergo. The army 
were satisfied with this decision,' and were in- 
spired with new confidence and ardor. It is 
often idle to attempt to oppose ignorance and 
absurdity by such feeble instruments as truth 
and reason, and the wisest managers of man- 
kind have generally been most successful when 
their plan has been to counteract one folly by 
means of the influence of another. 

Alexander's army consisted of about fifty 
thousand men, with the phalanx in the center. 
This army moved along down the eastern bank 



B.C. 331.] The Great Victory. 201 

Alexander approaches the Persian army. Preparations for the battle. 

of the Tigris, the scouts pressing forward as far 
as possible in every direction in front of the main 
army, in order to get intelligence of the foe. It 
is in this way that two great armies feel after 
each other, as it were, like insects creeping over 
the ground, exploring the way before them with 
their antennae. At length, after three days' ad- 
vance, the scouts came in with intelligence of 
the enemy. Alexander pressed forward with a 
detachment of his army to meet them. They 
proved to be, however, not the main body of Da- 
rius's army, but only a single corps of a thousand 
men, in advance of the rest. They retreated 
as Alexander approached. He, however, suc- 
ceeded in capturing some horsemen, who gave 
the information that Darius had assembled his 
vast forces on the plain of Arbela, and was wait- 
ing there in readiness to give his advancing en- 
emy battle. 

Alexander halted his troops. He formed an 
encampment, and made arrangements for de- 
positing his baggage there. He refreshed the 
men, examined and repaired their arms, and 
made the arrangements for battle. These op- 
erations consumed several days. At the end of 
that time, early one morning, long before day, 
the camp was in motion, and the columns, armed 



202 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Alexander surveys the Persian army. Council of officers. 

and equipped for immediate contest, moved for- 
ward. 

They expected to have reached the camp of 
Darius at daybreak, but the distance was great- 
er than they had supposed. At length, howev- 
er, the Macedonians, in their march, came upon 
the brow of a range of hills, from which they 
looked down upon numberless and endless lines 
of infantry and cavalry, and ranges after ranges 
of tents, which filled the plain. Here the army 
paused while Alexander examined the field, 
studying for a long time, and with great atten- 
tion, the numbers and disposition of the enemy. 
They were four miles distant still, but the mur- 
muring sounds of their voices and movements 
came to the ears of the Macedonians through 
the calm autumnal air. 

Alexander called the leading officers together, 
and held a consultation on the question whether 
to march down and attack the Persians on the 
plain that night, or to wait till the next day. 
Parmenio was in favor of a night attack, in or- 
der to surprise the enemy by coming upon them 
at an unexpected time. But Alexander said 
no. He was sure of victory. He had got his 
enemies all before him ; they were fully in his 
power. He would, therefore, take no advant- 



B.C. 331.] The Great Victor v. 203 



Number of the armies. Alexander's address. 

age, but would attack them fairly and in open 
day. Alexander had fifty thousand men; the 
Persians were variously estimated between five 
hundred thousand and a million. There is some- 
thing sublime in the idea of such a pause, made 
by the Macedonian phalanx and its wings, on 
the slopes of the hills, suspending its attack upon 
ten times its number, to give the mighty mass 
of their enemies the chances of a fair and equal 
contest. 

Alexander made congratulatory addresses to 
his soldiers on the occasion of their having now 
at last before them, what they had so long toiled 
and labored to attain, the whole concentrated 
force of the Persian empire. They were now 
going to contend, not for single provinces and 
kingdoms, as heretofore, but for general empire ; 
and the victory which they were about to achieve 
would place them on the summit of human glo- 
ry. In all that he said on the subject, the un- 
questionable certainty of victory was assumed. 

Alexander completed his arrangements, and 
then retired to rest. He went to sleep — -at least 
he appeared to do so. Early in the morning 
Parmenio arose, summoned the men to their 
posts, and arranged every thing for the march. 
He then went to Alexander's tent. Alexander 



204 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Parmenio and Alexander. Alexander's drees. 

was still asleep. He awoke him, and told him 
that all was ready. Parmenio expressed sur- 
prise at his sleeping so quietly at a time when 
such vast issues were at stake. " You seem as 
calm," said he, " as if you had had the battle 
and gained the victory." "I have done so," 
said Alexander. "I consider the whole work 
done when we have gained access to Darius and 
his forces, and find him ready to give us battle." 
Alexander soon appeared at the head of his 
troops. Of course this day was one of the most 
important ones of his life, and one of the histo- 
rians of the time has preserved an account of 
his dress as he went into battle. He wore a 
short tunic, girt close around him, and over it 
a linen breast-plate, strongly quilted. The belt 
by which the tunic was held was embossed with 
figures of beautiful workmanship. This belt 
was a present to him from some of the people 
of the conquered countries through which he had 
passed, and it was very much admired. He 
had a helmet upon his head, of polished steel, 
with a neck piece, also of steel, ornamented with 
precious stones. His helmet was surmounted 
with a white plume. His sword, which was a 
present to him from the King of Cyprus, was 
very light and slender, and of the most perfect 



B.C. 331.] 


T 


HE 


G 


REAT 


V 


I C T R Y. 




205 


War elephants. 














The 


phalanx. 



temper. He carried, also, a shield and a lance, 
made in the best possible manner for use, not 
for display. Thus his dress corresponded with 
the character of his action. It was simple, com- 
pact, and whatever of value it possessed consist- 
ed in those substantial excellences which would 
give the bearer the greatest efficiency on the 
field of battle. 

The Persians were accustomed to make use 
of elephants in their wars. They also had char- 
iots, with scythes placed at the axles, which 
they were accustomed to drive among their en- 
emies and mow them down. Alexander resort- 
ed to none of these contrivances. There was 
the phalanx — the terrible phalanx — advancing 
irresistibly either in one body or in detachments, 
with columns of infantry and flying troop^of 
horsemen on the wings. Alexander relied sim- 
ply on the strength, the courage, the energy, 
and the calm and steady, but resistless ardor of 
his men, arranging them in simple combina- 
tions, and leading them forward directly to their 
work. 

The Macedonians cut their way through the 
mighty mass of their enemies with irresistible 
force. The elephants turned and fled. The 
foot soldiers seized the horses of some of the 



206 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Defeat of the Persians. Flight of Darius. 

scythe-armed chariots and cut the traces. In 
respect to others, they opened to the right and 
left and let them pass through, when they were 
easily captured by the men in the rear. In the 
mean time the phalanx pressed on, enjoying a 
great advantage in the level nature of the 
ground. The Persian troops were broken in 
upon and driven away wherever they were at- 
tacked. In a word, before night the whole 
mighty mass was scattering every where in con- 
fusion, except some hundreds of thousands left 
trampled upon and dead, or else writhing upon 
the ground, and groaning in their dying ago- 
nies. Darius himself fled. Alexander pursued 
him with a troop of horse as far as Arbela, 
which had been Darius's head-quarters, and 
wlffere he had deposited immense treasures. 
Darius had gone through and escaped when 
Alexander arrived at Arbela, but the city and 
the treasures fell into Alexander's hands. 

Although Alexander had been so completely 
victorious over his enemies on the day of battle, 
and had maintained his ground against them 
with such invincible power, he was, neverthe- 
less, a few days afterward, driven entirely off 
the field, and completely away from the region 
where the battle had been fought. What the 



B.C.331.] The Great Victory. 207 

Alexander driven from the field. March to Babylon. 

living men, standing erect in arms, and full of 
martial vigor, could not do, was easily and ef- 
fectually accomplished by their dead bodies cor- 
rupting on the plain. The corpses of three 
hundred thousand men, and an equal bulk of 
the bodies of elephants and horses, was too 
enormous a mass to be buried. It had to be 
abandoned ; and the horrible effluvia and pesti- 
lence which it emitted drove all the inhabitants 
of the country away. Alexander marched his 
troops rapidly off the ground, leaving, as the di- 
rect result of the battle, a wide extent of coun- 
try depopulated and desolate, with this vast 
mass of putrefaction and pestilence reigning in 
awful silence and solitude in the midst of it. 

Alexander went to Babylon. The governor 
of the city prepared to receive him as a con- 
queror. The people came out in throngs to 
meet him, and all the avenues of approach were 
crowded with spectators. All the city walls, 
too, were covered with men and women, assem- 
bled to witness the scene. As for Alexander 
himself, he was filled with pride and pleasure at 
thus arriving at the full accomplishment of his 
earliest and long-cherished dreams of glory. 
. The great store-house of the royal treasures 
of Persia was at Susa, a strong city east of Bab- 



208 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Surrender of Susa. Plunder of the palace. 

ylon. Susa was the winter residence of the Per- 
sian kings, as Ecbatana, further north, among 
the mountains, was their summer residence. 
There was a magnificent palace and a very 
strong citadel at Susa, and the treasures were 
kept in the citadel. It is said that in times of 
peace the Persian monarchs had been accus- 
tomed to collect coin, melt it down, and cast the 
gold in earthen jars. The jars were afterward 
broken off from the gold, leaving the bullion in 
the form of the interior of the jars. An enor- 
mous amount of gold and silver, and of'other 
treasures, had been thus collected. Alexander 
was aware of this depository before he advanced 
to meet Darius, and, on the day of the battle 
of Arbela, as soon as the victory was decided, 
her sent an officer from the very field to summon 
Susa to surrender. They obeyed the summons, 
and Alexander, soon after his great public en- 
trance into Babylon, marched to Susa, and took 
possession of the vast stores of wealth accumu- 
lated there. The amount was enormous, both 
in quantity and value, and the seizing of it was 
a very magnificent act of plunder. In fact, it 
is probable that Alexander's slaughter of the 
Persian army at Arbela, and subsequent spoli- 
ation of Susa, constitute, taken together, the 



B.C. 331.] The Great Victory. 209 

Wholesale robbery and murder. Immense treasures. 

most gigantic case of murder and robbery which 
was ever committed by man ; so that, in per- 
forming these deeds, the great hero attained at 
last to the glory of having perpetrated the grand- 
est and most imposing of all human crimes. 
That these deeds were really crimes there can 
be no doubt, when we consider that Alexander 
did not pretend to have any other motive in this 
invasion than love of conquest, which is, in oth- 
er words, love of violence and plunder. They 
are only technically shielded from being called 
crimes by the fact that the earth has no laws 
and no tribunals high enough to condemn such 
enormous burglaries as that of one quarter of 
the globe breaking violently and murderously in 
upon and robbing the other. 

Besides the treasures, Alexander found also 
at Susa a number of trophies which had been 
brought by Xerxes from Greece ; for Xerxes 
had invaded Greece some hundred years before 
Alexander's day, and had brought to Susa the 
spoils and the trophies of his victories. Alex- 
ander sent them all back to Greece again. 

From Susa the conqueror moved on to Per- 
sepolis, the great Persian capital. On his march 
he had to pass through a defile of the mount- 
ains. The mountaineers had been accustomed 
O 



210 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 331. 

Pass of Susa. The mountaineers. 

to exact tribute here of all who passed, having 
a sort of right, derived from ancient usage, to 
the payment of a toll. They sent to Alexan- 
der when they heard that he was approaching, 
and informed him that he could not pass with 
his army without paying the customary toll. 
Alexander sent back word that he would meet 
them at the pass, and give them their due. 

They understood this, and prepared to defend 
the pass. Some Persian troops joined them. 
They built walls and barricades across the nar- 
row passages. They collected great stones on 
the brinks of precipices, and on the declivities 
of the mountains, to roll down upon the heads 
of their enemies. By these and every other 
means they attempted to stop Alexander's pas- 
sage. But he had contrived to send detach- 
ments around by circuitous and precipitous 
paths, which even the mountaineers had deem- 
ed impracticable, and thus attack his enemies 
suddenly and unexpectedly from above their 
own positions. As usual, his plan succeeded. 
The mountaineers were driven away, and the 
conqueror advanced toward the great Persian 
capital. 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 213 

March to Persepolis. Reckless cruelty. 



A 



Chapter X. 

The Death of Darius. 

LEXANDER'S march from Susa to Per- 
sepolis was less a march than a triumphal 
progress. He felt the pride and elation so natu- 
rally resulting from success very strongly. The 
moderation and forbearance which had charac- 
terized him in his earlier years, gradually disap- 
peared as he became great and powerful. He 
was intoxicated with his success. He became 
haughty, vain, capricious, and cruel. As he ap- 
proached Persepolis, he conceived the idea that, 
as this city was the capital and center of the 
Persian monarchy, and, as such, the point from 
which had emanated all the Persian hostility to 
Greece, he owed it some signal retribution. Ac- 
cordingly, although the inhabitants made no op- 
position to his entrance, he marched in with the 
phalanx formed, and gave the soldiers liberty to 
kill and plunder as they pleased. 

There was another very striking instance of 
the capricious recklessness now beginning to ap- 
pear in Alexander's character, which occurred 



214 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 333. 

The banquet. Thais proposes to burn the Persian palace. 

soon after he had taken possession of Persepolis. 
He was giving a great banquet to his friends, 
the officers of the army, and to Persians of dis- 
tinction among those who had submitted to him. 
There was, among other women at this banquet, 
a very beautiful and accomplished female named 
Thais. Alexander made her his favorite and 
companion, though she was not his wife. Thais 
did all in her power to captivate and please Al- 
exander during the feast by her vivacity, her 
wit, her adroit attentions to him, and the dis- 
play of her charms, and at length, when he him- 
self, as well as the other guests, were excited 
with wine, she asked him to allow her to have 
the pleasure of going herself and setting fire, 
with her own hands, to the great palace of the 
Persian kings in the city. Thais was a native 
of Attica in Greece, a kingdom of which Ath- 
ens was the capital. Xerxes, who had built the 
great palace of Persepolis, had formerly invaded 
Greece and had burned Athens, and now Thais 
desired to burn his palace in Persepolis, to grat- 
ify her revenge, by making, of its conflagration, 
an evening spectacle to entertain the Macedoi 
nian party after their supper. Alexander agreed 
to the proposal, and the whole company moved 
forward. Taking the torches from the banquet- 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 215 

Conflagration of the palace. Sublimity of the scene. 



ing halls, they sallied forth, alarming the city 
with their shouts, and with the flashing of the 
lights they bore. The plan of Thais was car- 
ried fully into effect, every half-intoxicated guest 
assisting, by putting fire to the immense pile 
wherever they could get access to it. They per- 
formed the barbarous deed with shouts of ven- 
geance and exultation. 

There is, however, something very solemn 
and awful in a great conflagration at night, and 
very few incendiaries can gaze upon the fury of 
the lurid and frightful flames which they have 
caused to ascend without some misgivings and. 
some remorse. Alexander was sobered by the 
grand and sublime, but terrible spectacle. He 

1 was awed by it. He repented. He ordered the 
fire to be extinguished ; but it was too late. 

; The palace was destroyed, and one new blot, 

which has never since been effaced, was cast 
I 

upon Alexander's character and fame. 

And yet, notwithstanding these increasing 
proofs of pride and cruelty, which were begin- 
ning to be developed, Alexander still preserved 
some of the early traits of character w T hich had 
made him so great a favorite in the commence- 
ment of his career. He loved his mother* and 
I sent her presents continually from the treasures 



210 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

Olympias. Her letters to Alexander. 

which were falling all the time into his posses- 
sion. She was a woman of a proud, imperious, 
and ungovernable character, and she made An- 
tipater, whom Alexander had left in command 
in Macedon, infinite trouble. She wanted to 
exercise the powers of government herself, and 
was continually urging this. Alexander would 
not comply with these wishes, but he paid her 
personally every attention in his power, and 
bore all her invectives and reproaches with great 
patience and good humor. At one time he re- 
ceived a long letter from Antipater, full of com- 
plaints against her ; but Alexander, after read- 
ing it, said that they were heavy charges it was 
true, but that a single one of his mother's tears 
would outweigh ten thousand such accusations. 
Olympias used to write very frequently to 
Alexander, and in these letters she would criti- 
cise and discuss his proceedings, and make com- 
ments upon the characters and actions of his 
generals. Alexander kept these letters very se- 
cret, never showing them to any one. One day, 
however, when he was reading one of these let- 
ters, Hephsestion, the personal friend and com- 
panion who has been already several times men- 
tioned, came up, half playfully, and began to 
look over his shuulder. Alexander went on, al- 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 217 

Sy8igambi8. Alexander's kindneaa to her. 

lowing him to read, and then, when the letter 
was finished he took the signet ring from his 
finger and pressed it upon Hephsestion's lips, a 
signal for silence and secrecy. 

Alexander was very kind to Sysigambis, the 
mother of Darius, and also to Darius's children. 
He would not give these unhappy captives their 
liberty, but in every other respect he treated 
them with the greatest possible kindness and 
consideration. He called Sysigambis mother, 
loaded her with presents — presents, it is true, 
which he had plundered from her son, but to 
which it was considered, in those days, that he 
had acquired a just and perfect title. When he 
reached Susa, he established Sysigambis and 
the children there in great state. This had been 
their usual residence in most seasons of the year, 
when not at Persepolis, so that here they were, 
as it were, at home. Ecbatana* was, as has 
been already mentioned, further north, among 
the mountains. After the battle of Arbela, 
while Alexander marched to Babylon and to 
Susa, Darius had fled to Ecbatana, and was now 
there, his family being thus at one of the royal 
palaces under the command of the conqueror, 
and he himself independent, but insecure, in the 

* The modem Ispahan. 



218 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330 

Darius at Ecbatana. His speech to his army. 

other. He had with him about forty thousand 
men, who still remained faithful to his fallen 
fortunes. Among these were several thousand 
Greeks, whom he had collected in Asia Minor 
and other Grecian countries, and whom he had 
attached to his service by means of pay. 

He called the officers of his army together, 
and explained to them the determination that 
he had come to in respect to his future move- 
ments. " A large part of those," said he, " who 
formerly served as officers of my government, 
have abandoned me in my adversity, and gone 
over to Alexander's side. They have surren- 
dered to him the towns, and citadels, and prov- 
inces which I intrusted to their fidelity. You 
alone remain faithful and true. As for myself, 
I might yield to the conqueror, and have him 
assign to me some province or kingdom to gov- 
ern as his subordinate ; but I will never sub- 
mit to such a degradation. I can die in the 
struggle, but never will yield. I will wear no 
crown which another puts upon my brow, nor 
give up my right to reign over the empire of 
my ancestors till I give up my life. If you 
agree with me in this determination, let us act 
energetically upon it. We have it in our pow- 
er to terminate the injuries we are suffering, or 
else to avenge them." 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 219 

Conspiracy against Darius. Bcssus and his confederates. 

The army responded most cordially to this 
appeal. They were ready, they said, to follow 
him wherever he should lead. All this appar- 
ent enthusiasm, however, was very delusive and 
unsubstantial. A general named Bessus, com- 
bining with some other officers in the army, con- 
ceived the plan of seizing Darius and making 
him a prisoner, and then taking command of 
the army himself. If Alexander should pursue 
him, and be likely to overtake and conquer him, 
he then thought that, by giving up Darius as a 
prisoner, he could stipulate for liberty and safe- 
ty, and perhaps great rewards, both for himself 
and for those who acted with him. If, on the 
other hand, they should succeed in increasing 
their own forces so as to make head against Al- 
exander, and finally to drive him away, then 
Bessus was to usurp the throne, and dispose of 
Darius by assassinating him, or imprisoning 
him for life in some remote and solitary castle. 

Bessus communicated his plans, very cau- 
tiously at first, to the leading officers of the 
army. The Greek soldiers were not included 
in the plot. They, however, heard and saw 
enough to lead them to suspect what was in 
preparation. They warned Darius, and urged 
him to rely upon them more than he had done ; 



220 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

Advance of Alexander. Retreat of Darius. The Caspian Gates. 

to make them his body-guard, and to pitch his 
tent in their part of the encampment. But Da- 
rius declined these proposals. He would not, 
he said, distrust and abandon his countrymen, 
who were his natural protectors, and put him- 
self in the hands of strangers. He would not 
betray and desert his friends in anticipation of 
their deserting and betraying him. 

In the mean time, as Alexander advanced to- 
ward Ecbatana, Darius and his forces retreated 
from it toward the eastward, through the great 
tract of country lying south of the Caspian Sea. 
There is a mountainous region here, with a de- 
file traversing it, through which it would be 
necessary for Darius to pass. This defile was 
called the Caspian Gates,* the name referring 
to rocks on each side. The marching of an 
army through a narrow and dangerous defile 
like this always causes detention and delay, and 
Alexander hastened forward in hopes to over- 
take Darius before he should reach it. He ad- 
vanced with such speed that only the strongest 
and most robust of his army could keep up. 
Thousands, worn out with exertion and toil, 
were left behind, and many of the horses sank 
down by the road side, exhausted with heat and 

* Pylcc Casjrice on the map, which means the Caspian Gates, 






B.C. 330.] Dkath of Darius. 221 

Pursuit of Darius. Foraging parties 

fatigue, to die. Alexander pressed desperately 
on with all who were able to follow. 

It was all in vain, however ; it was too late 
when he arrived at the pass. Darius had gone 
through with all his army. Alexander stopped 
to rest his men, and to allow time for those be- 
hind to come up. He then went on for a couple 
of days, when he encamped, in order to send out 
foraging parties — that is to say, small detach- 
ments, dispatched to explore the surrounding 
country in search of grain and other food for the 
horses. Food for the horses of an army being 
too bulky to be transported far, has to be col- 
lected day by day from the neighborhood of the 
line of march. 

While halting for these foraging parties to 
return, a Persian nobleman came into the camp, 
and informed Alexander that Darius and the 
forces accompanying him were encamped about 
two days' march in advance, but that Bessus 
was in command — the conspiracy having been 
successful, and Darius having been deposed and 
made a prisoner. The Greeks, who had ad- 
hered to their fidelity, finding that all the army 
were combined against them, and that they 
were not strong enough to resist, had abandon- 
ed the Persian camp, and had retired to the 



222 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

The pursuit continued. Alexander stops to rest his anny. 

mountains, where they were awaiting the re- 
sult, 

Alexander determined to set forward imme- 
diately in pursuit of Bessus and his prisoner. 
He did not wait for the return of the foraging 
parties. He selected the ablest and most act- 
ive, both of foot soldiers and horsemen, ordered 
them to take two days' provisions, and then set 
forth with them that very evening. The party 
pressed on all that night, and the next day till 
noon. They halted till evening, and then set 
forth again. Very early the next morning they 
arrived at the encampment which the Persian 
nobleman had described. They found the re- 
mains of the camp-fires, and all the marks usu- 
ally left upon a spot which has been used as the 
bivouac of an army. The army itself, however, 
was gone. 

The pursuers were now too much fatigued to 
go any further without rest. Alexander remain- 
ed here, accordingly, through the day, to give 
his men and his horses refreshment and repose. 
That night they set forward again, and the next 
day at noon they arrived at another encamp- 
ment of the Persians, which they had left scarce- 
ly twenty-four hours before. The officers of Al- 
exander's army were excited and animated in 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 223 

Want of water. Disregarded by Alexander. 

the highest degree, as they found themselves 
thus drawing so near to the great object of their 
pursuit. They were ready for any exertions, 
any privation and fatigue, any measures, how- 
ever extraordinary, to accomplish their end. 

Alexander inquired of the inhabitants of the 
place whether there were not some shorter road 
than the one along which the enemy were mov- 
ing. There was one cross-road, but it led 
through a desolate and desert tract of land, des- 
titute of water. In the march of an army, as 
the men are always heavily loaded with arms 
and provisions, and water can not be carried, it 
is always considered essential to choose routes 
which will furnish supplies of water by the way. 
Alexander, however, disregarded this considera- 
tion here, and prepared at once to push into the 
cross-road with a small detachment. He had 
been now two years advancing from Macedon 
into the heart of Asia, always in quest of Da- 
rius as his great opponent and enemy. He had 
conquered his armies, taken his cities, plunder- 
ed his palaces, and made himself master of his 
whole realm. Still, so long as Darius himself 
remained at liberty and in the field, no victories 
could be considered as complete. To capture 
Darius himself would be the last and crowning 



224 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

The pursuit grows more exciting. Guides employed. 

act of his conquest. He had now been pursu- 
ing him for eighteen hundred miles, advancing 
slowly from province to province, and from king- 
dom to kingdom. During all this time the 
strength of his flying foe had been wasting 
away. His armies had been broken up, his 
courage and hope had gradually failed, while 
the animation and hope of the pursuer had been 
gathering fresh and increasing strength from his 
successes, and were excited to wild enthusiasm 
now, as the hour for the final consummation of 
all his desires seemed to be drawing nigh. 

Guides were ordered to be furnished by the 
inhabitants, to show the detachment the way 
across the solitary and desert country. The 
detachment was to consist of horsemen entirely, 
that they might advance with the utmost celer- 
ity. To get as efficient a corps as possible, Al- 
exander dismounted five hundred of the cavalry, 
and gave their horses to five hundred men — offi- 
cers and others — selected for their strength and 
courage from among the foot soldiers. All were 
ambitious of being designated for this service. 
Besides the honor of being so selected, there 
was an intense excitement, as usual toward the 
close of a chase, to arrive at the end. 

This body of horsemen were ready to set out 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 225 

The Persians overtaken. Murder of Darius. 

in the evening. Alexander took the command, 
and, following the guides, they trotted off in the 
direction which the guides indicated. They 
traveled all night. When the day dawned, they 
saw, from an elevation to which they had at- 
tained, the body of the Persian troops moving 
at a short distance before them, foot soldiers, 
chariots, and horsemen pressing on together in 
great confusion and disorder. 

As soon as Bessus and his company found 
that their pursuers were close upon them, they 
attempted at first to hurry forward, in the vain 
hope of still effecting their escape. Darius was 
in a chariot. They urged this chariot on, but 
it moved heavily. Then they concluded to aban- 
don it, and they called upon Darius to mount 
a horse and ride off with them, leaving the rest 
of the army and the baggage to its fate. But 
Darius refused. He said he would rather trust 
himself in the hands of Alexander than in those 
of such traitors as they. Rendered desperate 
by their situation, and exasperated by this re- 
ply, Bessus and his confederates thrust their 
spears into Darius's body, as he sat in his char- 
iot, and then galloped away. They divided into 
different parties, each taking a different road. 
Their object in doing this was to increase their 
P 



226 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

Sufferings of Darius. Treachery of friends. 

chances of escape by confusing Alexander in his 
plans for pursuing them. Alexander pressed 
on toward the ground which the enemy were 
abandoning, and sent off separate detachments 
after the various divisions of the flying army. 

In the mean time Darius remained in his 
chariot wounded and bleeding. He was worn 
out and exhausted, both in body and mind, by 
his complicated sufferings and sorrows. His 
kingdom lost ; his family in captivity ; his be- 
loved wife in the grave, where the sorrows and 
sufferings of separation from her husband had 
borne her; his cities sacked; his palaces and 
treasures plundered ; and now he himself, in the 
last hour of his extremity, abandoned and be- 
trayed by all in whom he had placed his confi- 
dence and trust, his heart sunk within him in 
despair. At such a time the soul turns from 
traitorous friends to an open foe with something 
like a feeling of confidence and attachment. Da- 
rius's exasperation against Bessus was so in- 
tense, that his hostility to Alexander became a 
species of friendship in comparison. He felt 
that Alexander was a sovereign like himself, 
and would have some sympathy and fellow-feel- 
ing for a sovereign's misfortunes. He thought, 
too, of his mother, his wife, and his children, and 






B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 227 

Darius found. Sufferings from thirst. 

the kindness with which Alexander had treated 
them went to his heart. He lay there, accord-,^ 
ingly, faint and bleeding in his chariot, and look- 
ing for the coming of Alexander as for that of 
a protector and friend, the only one to whom he 
could now look for any relief in the extremity 
of his distress. 

The Macedonians searched about in various 
places, thinking it possible that in the sudden 
dispersion of the enemy Darius might have been 
left behind. At last the chariot in which he was 
lying was found. Darius was in it, pierced with 
spears. The floor of the chariot was covered 
with blood. They raised him a little, and he 
spoke. He called for water. 

Men wounded and dying on the field of bat- 
tle are tormented always with an insatiable and 
intolerable thirst, the manifestations of which 
constitute one of the greatest horrors of the 
scene. They cry piteously to all who pass to 
bring them water, or else to kill them. They 
crawl along the ground to get at the canteens 
of their dead companions, in hopes to find, re- 
maining in them, some drops to drink ; and if 
there is a little brook meandering through the 
i battle-field, its bed gets filled and choked up 
1 with the bodies of those who crawled there, in 



228 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

Darius calls for water. The interpreter. 

their agony, to quench their horrible thirst, and 
die. Darius was suffering this thirst. It bore 
down and silenced, for the time, every other suf- 
fering, so that his first cry, when his enemies 
came around him with shouts of exultation, was 
not for his life, not for mercy, not for relief from 
the pain and anguish of his wounds — he begged 
them to give him some water. 

He spoke through an interpreter. The inter- 
preter was a Persian prisoner whom the Mace- 
donian army had taken some time before, and 
who had learned the Greek language in the 
Macedonian camp. Anticipating some occasion 
for his services, they had brought him with 
them now, and it was through him that Darius 
called for water. A Macedonian soldier went 
immediately to get some. Others hurried away 
in search of Alexander, to bring him to the spot 
where the great object of his hostility, and of 
his long and protracted pursuit, was dying. 

Darius received the drink. He then said that 
he was extremely glad that they had an inter- 
preter with them, who could understand him, 
and bear his message to Alexander. He had 
been afraid that he should have had to die with- 
out being able to communicate what he had to 
say. " Tell Alexander," said he, then, " that 



B.C. 330.] Death of Darius. 229 

Darius's message to Alexander. Affecting scene. 

I feel under the strongest obligations to him, 
which I can now never repay, for his kindness 
to my wife, my mother, and my children. He 
not only spared their lives, but treated them 
with the greatest consideration and care, and 
did all in his power to make them happy. The 
last feeling in my heart is gratitude to him for 
these favors. I hope now that he will go on 
prosperously, and finish his conquests as tri- 
umphantly as he has begun them." He would 
have made one last request, he added, if he had 
thought it necessary, and that was, that Alex- 
ander would pursue the traitor Bessus, and 
avenge the murder he had committed ; but he 
was sure that Alexander would do this of his 
own accord, as the punishment of such treach- 
ery was an object of common interest for every 
king. 

Darius then took Polystratus, the Macedo- 
nian who had brought him the water, by the 
hand, saying, " Give Alexander thy hand as I 
now give thee mine; it is the pledge of my 
gratitude and affection." 

Darius was too weak to say much more. 
They gathered around him, endeavoring to sus- 
tain his strength until Alexander should arrive ; 
but it was all in vain. He sank gradually, and 



230 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330: 

Alexander's grief at Darius's death. He sends the body to Sysigambis. 

soon ceased to breathe. Alexander came up a 
few minutes after all was over. He was at 
first shocked at the spectacle before him, and 
then overwhelmed with grief. He wept bitter- 
ly. Some compunctions of conscience may have 
visited his heart at seeing thus before him the 
ruin he had made. Darius had never injured 
him or done him any wrong, and yet here he 
lay, hunted to death by a persevering and re- 
lentless hostility, for which his conqueror had 
no excuse but his innate love of dominion over 
his fellow-men. Alexander spread his own mil- 
itary cloak over the dead body. He immedi- 
ately made arrangements for having the body 
embalmed, and then sent it to Susa, for Sysi- 
gambis, in a very costly coffin, and with a pro- 
cession of royal magnificence. He sent it to 
her that she might have the satisfaction of see- 
ing it deposited in the tombs of the Persian 
kings. What a present ! The killer of a son 
sending the dead body, in a splendid coffin, to 
the mother, as a token of respectful regard ! * 

Alexander pressed on to the northward and 
eastward in pursuit of Bessus, who had soon 
collected the scattered remains of his army, and 
was doing his utmost to get into a posture of 
defense. He did not, however, overtake him till 



B.C. 330.] Death ov Darks. 231 

Crossing the Oxus. Capture of the traitor Bessus. 

he had crossed the Oxus, a large river which 
will be found upon the map, flowing to the 
northward and westward into the Caspian Sea. 
He had great difficulty in crossing this river, as 
it was too deep to be forded, and the banks and 
bottom were so sandy and yielding that he could 
not make the foundations of bridges stand. He 
accordingly made floats and rafts, which were 
supported by skins made buoyant by inflation, 
or by being stuffed with straw and hay. After 
getting his army, which had been in the mean 
time greatly re-enforced and strengthened, across 
this river, he moved on. The generals under 
Bessus, finding all hope of escape failing them, 
resolved on betraying him as he had betrayed 
his commander. They sent word to Alexander 
that if he would send forward a small force 
where they should indicate, they would give up 
Bessus to his hands. Alexander did so, intrust-* 
ing the command to an officer named Ptolemy, 
Ptolemy found Bessus in a small walled town 
whither he had fled for refuge, and easily took 
him prisoner. He sent back word to Alexander 
that Bessus was at his disposal, and asked for 
orders. The answer was, "Put a rope around 
his neok and send him to me." 

When the wretched prisoner was brought 



2-j2 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 330. 

Mutilation of Bessus. He is sent to Sysigambie, 

into Alexander's presence, Alexander demand- 
ed of him how he could have been so base as to 
have seized, bound, and at last murdered his 
kinsman and benefactor. It is a curious in- 
stance in proof of the permanence and stability 
of the great characteristics of human nature, 
through all the changes of civilization and lapses 
of time, that Bessus gave the same answer that 
wrong-doers almost always give when brought 
to account for their wrongs. He laid the fault 
upon his accomplices and friends. It was not 
his act, it was theirs. 

Alexander ordered him to be publicly scourg- 
ed ; then he caused his face to be mutilated in 
a manner customary in those days, whefl a ty- 
rant wished to stamp upon his victim a perpet- 
ual mark of infamy. In this condition, and 
with a mind in an agony of suspense and fear 
at the thought of worse tortures which he knew 
were to come, Alexander sent him as a second 
present to Sysigambis, to be dealt with, at Susa, 
as her revenge might direct. She inflicted upon 
him the most extreme tortures, and finally, 
when satiated with the pleasure of seeing him 
suffer, the story is that they chose four very 
elastic trees, growing at a little distance from 
each other, and bent .down the tops of them to- 



B.C.330.] Death of Darius. 233 



Terrible punishment of Bessus. 



ward the central point between them. They 
fastened the exhausted and dying Bessus to 
these trees, one limb of his body to each, and 
then releasing the stems from their confinement, 
they flew upward, tearing the body asunder, 
each holding its own dissevered portion, as if in 
triumph, far over the heads of the multitude 
assembled to witness the spectacle. 



234 x4lexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Alexander at the summit of his ambition. Sad changes. 



Chapter XL 
Deterioration of Character. 

ALEXANDER was now twenty-six years 
of age. He had accomplished fully the 
great objects which had been the aim of his am- 
bition. Darius was dead, and he was himself 
the undisputed master of all western Asia. His 
wealth was almost boundless. His power was 
supreme over what was, in his view, the whole 
known world. But, during the process of ris- 
ing to this ascendency, his character was sadly 
changed. He lost the simplicity, the temper- 
ance, the moderation, and the sense of justice 
which characterized his early years. He adopt- 
ed the dress and the luxurious manners of the 
Persians. He lived in the palaces of the Per- 
sian kings, imitating all their state and splen- 
dor. He became very fond of convivial enter- 
tainments and of wine, and often drank to ex- 
cess. He provided himself a seraglio of three 
hundred and sixty young females, in whose com- 
pany he spent his time, giving himself up to ev- 
ery form of effeminacy and dissipation. In a 



B.C. 329.] Change of Character. 235 

Alexander becomes dissipated. His officers become estranged. 

word, he was no longer the same man. The de- 
cision, the energy of character, the steady pur- 
suit of great ends by prudence, forethought, 
patient effort, and self-denial, all disappeared; 
nothing now seemed to interest him but ban- 
quets, carousals, parties of pleasure, and whole 
days and nights spent in dissipation and vice. 

This state of things was a great cause of mor- 
tification and chagrin to the officers of his army. 
Many of them were older than himself, and bet- 
ter able to resist these temptations to luxury, 
efTeminacy, and vice. 4 They therefore remain- 
ed firm in their original simplicity and integrity, 
and after some respectful but ineffectual remon- 
strances, they stood aloof, alienated from their 
commander in heart, and condemning very 
strongly, among themselves, his wickedness and 
folly. 

On the other hand, many of the younger of- 
ficers followed Alexander's example, and became 
as vain, as irregular, and as fond of vicious in- 
dulgence as he. But then, though they joined 
him in his pleasures, there was no strong bond 
of union between him and them. The tie which 
binds mere companions in pleasure together is 
always very slight and frail. Thus Alexander 
gradually lost the confidence and affection of his 



2'36 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Character of Parmenio. His services to Alexander. 

old friends, and gained no new ones. His offi- 
cers either disapproved his conduct, and were 
distant and cold, or else joined him in his dissi- 
pation and vice, without feeling any real respect 
for his character, or being bound to him by any 
principle of fidelity. 

Parmenio and his son Philotas were, respect- 
ively, striking examples of these two kinds of 
character. Parmenio was an old general, now 
considerably advanced in life. He had served, 
as has already been stated, under Philip, Alex- 
ander's father, and had acquired great experi- 
ence and great fame before Alexander succeed- 
ed to the throne. During the whole of Alexan- 
der's career Parmenio had been his principal 
lieutenant general, and he had always placed 
his greatest reliance upon him in all trying emer- 
gencies. He was cool, calm, intrepid, sagacious. 
He held Alexander back from many rash enter- 
prises, and was the efficient means of his ac- 
complishing most of his plans. It is the custom 
among all nations to give kings the glory of all 
that is effected by their generals and officers ; 
and the writers of those days would, of course, 
in narrating the exploits of the Macedonian 
army, exaggerate the share which Alexander 
had in their performances, and underrate those 



B.C.329.] Change of Character. 237 

Parmenio's son, Philotas. His dissolute character. 

of Parmenio. But in modern times, many im- 
partial readers, in reviewing calmly these events, 
think that there is reason to doubt whether Al- 
exander, if he had set out on his great expedi- 
tion without Parmenio, would have succeeded 
at all. 

Philotas was the son of Parmenio, but he 
was of a very different character. The differ- 
ence was one which is very often, in all ages of 
the world, to be observed between those who 
inherit greatness and those who acquire it for 
themselves. We see the same analogy reign- 
ing at the present day, when the sons of the 
wealthy, who are born to fortune, substitute 
pride, and arrogance, and vicious self-indulgence 
and waste for the modesty, and prudence, and 
virtue of their sires, by means of which the for- 
tune was acquired. Philotas was proud, boast- 
ful, extravagant, and addicted, like Alexander 
his master, to every species of indulgence and 
dissipation. He was universally hated. His 
father, out of patience with his haughty airs, 
his boastings, and his pomp and parade, advised 
him, one day, to "make himself less." But 
Parmenio's prudent advice to his son was thrown 
away. Philotas spoke of himself as Alexander's 
great reliance. " What would Philip have been 



238 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Conspiracies. Plot of Dymnua. 

or have done," said he, " without my father Par- 
menio ? and what would Alexander have been, 
or have done, without me ?" These things were 
reported to Alexander, and thus the mind of 
each was filled with suspicion, fear, and hatred 
toward the other. 

Courts and camps- are always the scenes of 
conspiracy and treason, and Alexander was con- 
tinually hearing of conspiracies and plots form- 
ed against him. The strong sentiment of love 
and devotion with which he inspired all around 
him at the commencement of his career, was 
now gone, and his generals and officers were 
continually planning schemes to depose him 
from the power which he seemed no longer to 
have the energy to wield ; or, at least, Alexan- 
der was continually suspecting that such plans 
were formed, and he was kept in a continual 
state of uneasiness and anxiety in discovering 
and punishing them. 

At last a conspiracy occurred in which Phi- 
lotas was implicated. Alexander was informed 
one day that a plot had been formed to depose 
and destroy him ; that Philotas had been made 
acquainted with it by a friend of Alexander's, 
in order that he might make it known to the 
king ; that he had neglected to do so, thus mak- 



B.C.329.] Change of Character. 239 

Dymnus destroys himself. Philotas suspected. 

ing it probable that he was himself in league 
with the conspirators. Alexander was informed 
that the leader and originator of this conspiracy- 
was one of his generals named Dymnus. 

He immediately sent an officer to Dymnus to 
summon him into his presence. Dymnus ap- 
peared to be struck with consternation at this 
summons. Instead of obeying it, he drew his 
sword, thrust it into his own heart, and fell 
dead upon the ground. 

Alexander then sent for Philotas, and asked 
him if it was indeed true that he had been in- 
formed of this conspiracy, and had neglected to 
make it known. 

Philotas replied that he had been told that 
such a plot was formed, but that he did not be- 
lieve it ; that such stories were continually in- 
vented by the malice of evil-disposed men, and 
that he had not considered the report which 
came to his ears as worthy of any attention. 
He was, however, now convinced, by the terror 
which Dymnus had manifested, and by his sui- 
cide, that all was true, and he asked Alexan- 
der's pardon for not having taken immediate 
measures for communicating promptly the in- 
formation he had received. 

Alexander gave him his hand, said that he was 



240 Alexander the Great. [B.C.329. 

The council of officers. Philotas accused. 

convinced that he was innocent, and had acted 
as he did from disbelief in the existence of the 
conspiracy, and not from any guilty participa- 
tion in it. So Philotas went away to his tent. 

Alexander, however, did not drop the subject 
here. He called a council of his ablest and best 
friends and advisers, consisting of the principal 
officers of his army, and laid the facts before 
them. They came to a different conclusion from 
his in respect to the guilt of Philotas. They 
believed him implicated in the crime, and de- 
manded his trial. Trial in such a case, in those 
days, meant putting the accused to the torture, 
with a view of forcing him to confess his guilt. 

Alexander yielded to this proposal. Perhaps 
he had secretly instigated it. The advisers of 
kings and conquerors, in such circumstances as 
this, generally have the sagacity to discover 
what advice will be agreeable. At all events, 
Alexander followed the advice of his counselors, 
and made arrangements for arresting Philotas 
on that very evening. 

These circumstances occurred at a time when 
the army was preparing for a march, the vari- 
ous generals lodging in tents pitched for the pur- 
pose. Alexander placed extra guards in vari- 
ous parts of the encampment, as if to impress 



B.C. 329.] Change of Character. '2i\ 

Arrest of Philotas. The body of Dyrnnus. 

the whole army with a sense of the importance 
and solemnity of the occasion. He then sent 
officers to the tent of Philotas, late at night, to 
arrest him. The officers found their unhappy 
victim asleep. They awoke him, and made 
known their errand. Philotas arose, and obeyed 
the summons, dejected and distressed, aware, 
apparently, that his destruction was impending. 

The next morning Alexander called together 
a large assembly, consisting of the principal and 
most important portions of the army, to the num- 
ber of several thousands. They came together 
with an air of impressive solemnity, expecting, 
from the preliminary preparations, that business 
of very solemn moment was to come before them, 
though they knew not what it was. 

These impressions of awe and solemnity were 
very much increased by the spectacle which first 
met the eyes of the assembly after they were 
convened. This spectacle was that of the dead 
body of Dyrnnus, bloody and ghastly, which Al- 
exander ordered to be brought in and exposed 
to view. The death of Dyrnnus had been kept 
a secret, so that the appearance of his body was 
an unexpected as well as a shocking sight. 
When the first feeling of surprise and wonder 
had a little subsided, Alexander explained to the 

Q 



242 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Alexander's address to the army. Philotas brought to trial. 

assembly the nature of the conspiracy, and the 
circumstances connected with the self-execution 
of one of the guilty participators in it. The 
spectacle of the body, and the statement of the 
king, produced a scene of great and universal 
excitement in the assembly, and this excitement 
was raised to the highest pitch by the announce- 
ment which Alexander now made, that he had 
reason to believe that Philotas and his father 
Parmenio, officers who had enjoyed his highest 
favor, and in whom he had placed the most un- 
bounded confidence, were the authors and orig- 
inators of the whole design. 

He then ordered Philotas to be brought in. 
He came guarded as a criminal, with his hands 
tied behind him, and his head covered with a 
coarse cloth. He was in a state of great dejec- 
tion and despondency. It is true that he was 
brought forward for trial, but he knew very well 
that trial meant torture, and that there was no 
hope for him as to the result. Alexander said 
that he would leave the accused to be dealt with 
by the assembly, and withdrew. 

The authorities of the army, who now had 
the proud and domineering spirit which had so 1 
long excited their hatred and envy completely 
in their power, listened for a time to what Phi- 



B.C. 329.] Chance of Character. 243 

Defense of Philotas. He is put to the torture. 

lotas had to say in his own justification. He 
showed that there was no evidence whatever 
against him, and appealed to their sense of jus- 
tice not to condemn him on mere vague surmi- 
ses. In reply, they decided to put him to the 
torture. There was no evidence, it was true, 
and they wished, accordingly, to supply its place 
by his own confession, extorted by pain. Of 
course, his most inveterate and implacable ene- 
mies were appointed to conduct the operation. 
They put Philotas upon the rack. The rack is 
an instrument of wheels and pulleys, into which 
the victim is placed, and his limbs and tendons 
are stretched by it in a manner which produces 
most excruciating pain. 

Philotas bore the beginning of his torture with 
great resolution and fortitude. He made no 
complaint, he uttered no cry : this was the sig- 
nal to his executioners to increase the tension 
and the agony. Of course, in such a trial as 
this, there was no question of guilt or innocence 
at issue. The only question was, which could 
stand out the longest, his enemies in witness- 
ing horrible sufferings, or he himself in endur- 
ing them. In this contest the unhappy Philo- 
tas was vanquished at last. He begged them 
* to release him from the rack, saying he would 



244 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Confession of Philotas. He is stoned to death. 

confess whatever they required, on condition of 
being allowed to die in peace. 

They accordingly released him, and, in an- 
swer to their questions, he confessed that he him- 
self and his father were involved in the plot. He 
said yes to various other inquiries relating to the 
circumstances of the conspiracy, and to the guilt 
of various individuals whom those that managed 
the torture had suspected, or who, at any rate, 
they wished to have condemned. The answers 
of Philotas to all these questions were written 
down, and he was himself sentenced to be stoned. 
The sentence was put in execution without any 
delay .V 

During all this time Parmenio was in Media, 
in command of a very important part of Alex- 
ander's army. It was decreed that he must 
die ; but some careful management was neces- 
sary to secure his execution while he was at so 
great a distance, and at the head of so great a 
force. The affair had to be conducted with great 
secrecy as well as dispatch. The plan adopted 
was as follows : 

There was a certain man, named Polydamas, 
who was regarded as Parmenio's particular 
friend. Polydamas was commissioned to go to 
Media and see the execution performed. He 



B.C. 329.] Change of Character. 245 



Parmenio condemned to death. Mission of Polydamas. 

was selected, because it was supposed that if 
any enemy, or a stranger, had been sent, Par- 
menio would have received him with suspicion, 
or at least with caution, and kept himself on 
his guard. They gave Polydamas several let- 
ters to Parmenio, as if from his friends, and to 
one of them they attached the seal of his son 
Philotas, the more completely to deceive the 
unhappy father. Polydamas was eleven days 
on his journey into Media. He had letters to 
Cleander, the governor of the province of Media, 
which contained the king's warrant for Parme- 
nio's execution. He arrived at the house of 
Cleander in the night. He delivered his letters, 
and they together concerted the plans for carry- 
ing the execution into effect. 

After having taken all the precautions neces- 
sary, Polydamas went, with many attendants 
accompanying him, to the quarters of Parme- 
nio. The old general, for he was at this time 
eighty years of age, was walking in his grounds. ' 
Polydamas being admitted, ran up to accost 
him, with great appearance of cordiality and 
friendship. He delivered to him his letters, and 
Parmenio read them. He seemed much pleas- 
ed with their contents, especially with the one 
which had been written in the name of his son. 



246 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Precautions. Brutal murder of Parmenio. 

He had no means of detecting the imposture, 
for it was very customary in those days for let- 
ters to be written by secretaries, and to be au- 
thenticated solely by the seal. 

Parmenio was much pleased to get good tid- 
ings from Alexander, and from his son, and be- 
gan conversing upon the contents of the letters, 
when Polydamas, watching his opportunity, 
drew forth a dagger which he had concealed 
upon his person, and plunged it into Parmenio's 
side. He drew it forth immediately and struck 
it at his throat. The attendants rushed on at 
this signal, and thrust their swords again and 
again into the fallen body until it ceased to 
breathe. 

The death of Parmenio and of his son in this 
violent manner, when, too, there was so little 
evidence of their guilt, made a very general and 
a very unfavorable impression in respect to Al- 
exander ; and not long afterward another case 
occurred, in some respects still more painful, as 
it evinced still more strikingly that the mind of 
Alexander, which had been in his earlier days 
filled with such noble and lofty sentiments of 
justice and generosity, was gradually getting to 
be under the supreme dominion of selfish and un 
governable passions : it was the case of Clitus. 



■ 



IJ.C.329.] Change of Character. "247 

Story of Clitus. He saves Alexander's life. 

Clitus was a very celebrated general of Alex- 
ander's army, and a great favorite with the 
king. He had, in fact, on one occasion saved 
Alexander's life. It was at the battle of the 
Granicus. Alexander had exposed himself in 
the thickest of the combat, and was surrounded 
by enemies. The sword of one of them was act- 
ually raised over his head, and would have fallen 
and killed him on the spot, if Clitus had not rush- 
ed forward and cut the man down just at the 
instant when he was about striking the blow. 
Such acts of fidelity and courage as this had 
given Alexander great confidence in Clitus. It 
happened, shortly after the death of Parmenio, 
that the governor of one of the most important 
provinces of the empire resigned his post. Al- 
exander appointed Clitus to fill the vacancy. 

The evening before his departure to take 
charge of his government, Alexander invited 
him to a banquet, made, partly at least, in hon- 
or of his elevation. Clitus and the other guests 
assembled. They drank wine, as usual, with 
great freedom. Alexander became excited, and 
began to speak, as he was now often accustomed 
to do, boastingly of his own exploits, and to dis- 
parage those of his father Philip in comparison. 

Men half intoxicated are very prone to quar- 



248 Alexander the Great. [B.C.329. 

Services of Clitus. Occurrences at the banquet. 

rel, and not the less so for being excellent friends 
when sober. Clitus had served under Philip. 
He was now an old man, and, like other old men, 
was very tenacious of the glory that belonged to 
the exploits of his youth. » He was very restless 
and uneasy at hearing Alexander claim for him- 
self the merit of his father Philip's victory at 
Chseronea, and began to murmur something to 
those who sat next to him about kings claiming 
and getting a great deal of glory which did not 
belong to them. 

Alexander asked what it was that Clitus said. 
No one replied. Clitus, however, went on talk- 
ing, speaking more and more audibly as he be- 
came gradually more and more excited. He 
praised the character of Philip, and applauded 
his military exploits, saying that they were far 
superior to any of the enterprises of their day. 
The different parties at the table took up the 
subject, and began to dispute, the old men tak- 
ing the part of Philip and former days, and the 
younger defending Alexander. Clitus became 
more and more excited. He praised Parmenio, 
who had been Philip's greatest general, and be- 
gan to impugn the justice of his late condemna- 
tion and death. 

Alexander retorted, and Clitus, rising from 



B.C. 329.] C ii a n G e of Char a cter. 249 

Clitus reproaches Alexander. Alexander's rage. 

his seat, and losing now all sell-command, re- 
proached him with severe and bitter words. 
" Here is the hand," said he, extending his arm, 
" that saved your life at the battle of the Gran- 
icus, and the fate of Parmenio shows what sort 
of gratitude and what rewards faithful servants 
are to expect at your hands." Alexander, burn- 
ing with rage, commanded Clitus to leave the 
table. Clitus obeyed, saying, as he moved away, 
" He is right not to bear freeborn men at his ta- 
ble who can only tell him the truth. He is right. 
It is fitting for him to pass his life among bar- 
barians and slaves, who will be proud to pay 
their adoration to his Persian girdle and his 
splendid robe." 

Alexander seized a javelin to hurl at Clitus's 
head. The guests rose in confusion, and with 
many outcries pressed around him. Some seized 
Alexander's arm, some began to hurry Clitus 
out of the room, and some were engaged in 
loudly criminating and threatening each other. 
They got Clitus out of the apartment, but as 
soon as he was in the hall he broke away from 
them, returned by another door, and began to re- 
new his insults to Alexander. The king hurled 
his javelin and struck Clitus down, saying, at 
the same time, " Go, then, and join Philip and 



250 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 329. 

Alexander assassinates Clitus. His remorse. 

Parmenio." The company rushed to the res- 
cue of the unhappy man, but it was too late. 
He died almost immediately. 

Alexander, as soon as he came to himself, 
was overwhelmed with remorse and despair. 
He mourned bitterly, for many days, the death 
of his long-tried and faithful friend, and execra- 
ted the intoxication and passion, on his part, 
which had caused it. He could not, however, 
restore Clitus to life, nor remove from his own 
character the indelible stains which such deeds 
necessarily fixed upon it. 






; 



B.C. 326.] Alexander's End. 251 

Alexander's invasion of India. Insubordination of the army. 



Chapter XII. 
Alexander's End. 

AFTER the events narrated in the last chap- 
ter, Alexander continued, for two or three 
years, his expeditions and conquests in Asia, 
and in the course of them he met with a great 
variety of adventures which can not be here par- 
ticularly described. He penetrated into India 
as far as the banks of the Indus, and, not con- 
tent with this, was preparing to cross the Indus 
and go on to the Ganges. His soldiers, how- 
ever, resisted this design. They were alarmed 
at the stories which they heard of the Indian 
armies, with elephants bearing castles upon 
their backs, and soldiers armed with strange 
and unheard-of weapons. These rumors, and 
the natural desire of the soldiers not to go away 
any further from their native land, produced al- 
most a mutiny in the army. At length, Alex- 
ander, learning how strong and how extensive 
the spirit of insubordination was becoming, sum- 
moned his officers to his own tent, and then 
ordering the whole army to gather around, he 
went out to meet them. 



252 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 326. 

Alexander's address to the army. Address made to him 

He made an address to them, in which he re- 
counted all their past exploits, praised the cour- 
age and perseverance which they had shown 
thus far, and endeavored to animate them with 
a desire to proceed. They listened in silence, 
and no one attempted to reply. This solemn 
pause was followed by marks of great agitation 
throughout the assembly. The army loved 
their commander, notwithstanding his faults 
and failings. They were extremely unwilling 
to make any resistance to his authority ; but 
they had lost that extreme and unbounded con- 
fidence in his energy and virtue which made 
them ready, in the former part of his career, to 
press forward into any difficulties and dangers 
whatever, where he led the way. 

At last one of the army approached the king, 
and addressed him somewhat as follows : 

"We are not changed, sir, in our affection 
for you. We still have, and shall always re- 
tain, the same zeal and the same fidelity. We 
are ready to follow you at the hazard of our 
lives, and to march wherever you may lead us. 
Still we must ask you, most respectfully, to 
consider the circumstances in which we are 
placed. We have done all for you that it was 
possible for man to do. We have crossed seas 



B.C . o2o.] Alex a n der's End. 253 

The army refuses to go further. Alexander's disappointment 

and land. We have marched to the end of the 
world, and you are now meditating the conquest 
of another, by going in search of new Indias, 
unknown to the Indians themselves. Such a 
thought may be worthy of your courage and res- 
olution, but it surpasses ours, and our strength 
still more. Look at these ghastly faces, and 
these bodies covered with wounds and scars. 
Remember how numerous we were when first 
we set out with you, and see how few of us re- 
main. The few who have escaped so many 
toils and dangers have neither courage nor 
strength to follow you any further. They all 
long to revisit their country and their homes, 
and to enjoy, for the remainder of their lives, 
the fruits of all their toils. Forgive them these 
desires, so natural to man." 

The expression of these sentiments confirmed 
and strengthened them in the minds of all the 
soldiers. Alexander was greatly troubled and 
distressed. A disaffection in a small part of an 
army may be put down by decisive measures ; 
but when the determination to resist is univer- 
sal, it is useless for any commander, however 
imperious and absolute in temper, to attempt 
to withstand it. Alexander, however, was ex- 
tremely unwilling to yield. He remained two 



254 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 325. 

Alexander resolves to return. He is wounded in an assault. 

days shut up in his tent, the prey to disappoint- 
ment and chagrin. 

The result, however, was, that he abandoned 
plans of further conquest, and turned his steps 
again toward the west. He met with various 
adventures as he went on, and incurred many 
dangers, often in a rash and foolish manner, and 
for no good end. At one time, while attacking 
a small town, he seized a scaling ladder and 
mounted with the troops. In doing this, how- 
ever, he put himself forward so rashly and in- 
considerately that his ladder was broken, and 
while the rest retreated he was left alone upon 
the wall, whence he descended into the town, 
and was immediately surrounded by enemies. 
His friends raised their ladders again, and press- 
ed on desperately to find and rescue him. Some 
gathered around him and defended him, while 
others contrived to open a small gate, by which 
the rest of the army gained admission. By this 
means Alexander was saved ; though, when they 
brought him out of the city, there was an arrow 
three feet long, which could not be extracted, 
sticking into his side through his coat of mail. 

The surgeons first very carefully cut off the 
wooden shaft of the arrow, and then, enlarging 
the wound by incisions, they drew out the barbed 



B.C.324.] Alexander's End. 255 

Alexander's excesses. He abandons his old friends. 

point. The soldiers were indignant that Alex- 
ander should expose his person in such a fool- 
hardy way, only to endanger himself, and to com- 
pel them to rush into danger to rescue him. 
The wound very nearly proved fatal. The loss 
of blood was attended with extreme exhaustion ; 
still, in the course of a few weeks he recovered. 

Alexander's habits of intoxication and vicious 
excess of all kinds were, in the mean time, con- 
tinually increasing. He not only indulged in 
such excesses himself, but he encouraged them 
in others. He would offer prizes at his ban- 
quets to those who would drink the- most. On 
one of these occasions, the man who conquered 
drank, it is said, eighteen or twenty pints of 
wine, after which he lingered in misery for three 
days, and then died ; and more than forty oth- 
ers, present at the same entertainment, died in 
consequence of their excesses. 

Alexander returned toward Babylon. His 
friend Hephaestion was with him, sharing with 
him every where in all the vicious indulgences 
to which he had become so prone. Alexander 
gradually separated himself more and more from 
his old Macedonian friends, and linked himself 
more and more closely with Persian associates. 
He married Statira, the oldest daughter of Da- 



256 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 323. 

Entrance into Babylon. Magnificent spectacle. 

rius, and gave the youngest daughter to He- 
phsestion. He encouraged similar marriages be- 
tween Macedonian officers and Persian maidens, 
as far as he could. In a word, he seemed in- 
tent in merging, in every way, his original char- 
acter and habits of action in the effeminacy, lux- 
ury, and vice of the Eastern world, which he had 
at first so looked down upon and despised. 

Alexander's entrance into Babylon, on his re- 
turn from his Indian campaigns, was a scene of 
great magnificence and splendor. Embassadors 
and princes had assembled there from almost all 
the nations of the earth to receive and welcome 
him, and the most ample preparations were 
made for processions, shows, parades, and spec- 
tacles to do him honor. The whole country 
was in a state of extreme excitement, and the 
most expensive preparations were made to give 
him a reception worthy of one who was the con- 
queror, and monarch of the world, and the son 
of a god A 

When Alexander approached the city, how- 
ever, he was met by a deputation of Chaldean 
astrologers. The astrologers were a class of 
philosophers who pretended, in those days, to 
foretell human events by means of the motions 
of the stars. The motions of the stars were 



B.C. 323.] Alexander's End. 25? 

The astrologers. Study of the stars. 

studied very closely in early times, and in those 
Eastern countries, by the shepherds, who had 
often to remain in the open air, through the 
summer nights, to watch their flocks. These 
shepherds observed that nearly all the stars were 
fixed in relation to each other, that is, although 
they rose successively in the east, and, passing 
over, set in the west, they did not change in re- 
lation to each other. There were, however, a 
few that wandered about among the rest in 
an irregular and unaccountable manner. They 
called these stars the wanderers— that is, in 
their language, the planets — and they watched 
their mysterious movements with great interest 
and awe. They naturally imagined that these 
changes had some connection with human af- 
fairs, and they endeavored to prognosticate from 
them the events, whether prosperous or adverse, 
which were to befall mankind. Whenever a 
comet or an eclipse appeared, they thought it 
portended some terrible calamity. The study 
of the motions and appearances of the stars, with 
a view to foretell the course of human affairs, 
was the science of astrology. 

The astrologers came, in a very solemn and 
imposing procession, to meet Alexander on his 
march. They informed him that they had 
R 



258 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 323. 

Warning of the astrologers. Alexander's perplexity. 

found indubitable evidence in the stars that, if 
lie came into Babylon, he would hazard his life. 
They accordingly begged him not to approacli 
any nearer, but to choose some other city for 
his capital. Alexander w T as very much perplex- 
ed by this announcement. His mind, weaken- 
ed by effeminacy and dissipation, was very sus- 
ceptible to superstitious fears. It was not mere- 
ly by the debilitating influence of vicious indul- 
gence on the nervous constitution that this effect 
was produced. It was, in part, the moral influ-' 
ence of conscious guilt. Guilt makes men 
afraid. It not only increases the power of real 
dangers, but predisposes the mind to all sorts 
of imaginary fears. 

Alexander was very much troubled at this 
announcement of the astrologers. He suspend- 
ed his march, and began anxiously to consider 
what to do. At length the Greek philosophers 
came to him and reasoned with him on the sub- 
ject, persuading him that the science of astrol- 
ogy was not worthy of any belief. The Greeks 
had no faith in astrology. They foretold future 
events by the flight of birds, or by the appear- 
ances presented in the dissection of beasts offer- 
ed in sacrifice ! 

At length, however, Alexander's fears were 



" 



B.C.323.] Alexander's End. 259 

Death of Hephfestion. Alexander's melancholy. 

so far allayed that he concluded to enter the 
city. He advanced, accordingly, with his whole 
army, and made his entry under circumstances 
of the greatest possible parade and splendor. 
As soon, however, as the excitement of the first 
few days had passed away, his mind relapsed 
again, and he became anxious, troubled, and 
unhappy. 

Hephsestion, his great personal friend and 
companion, had died while he was on the march 
toward Babylon. He was brought to the grave 
by diseases produced by dissipation and vice. 
Alexander was very much moved by his death. 
It threw him at once into a fit of despondency 
and gloom. It was some time before he could 
at all overcome the melancholy reflections and 
forebodings which this event produced. He de- 
termined that, as soon as he arrived in Babylon, 
he would do all possible honor to Hephsestion's 
memory by a magnificent funeral. 

He accordingly now sent orders to all the cit- 
ies and kingdoms around, and collected a vast 
sum for this purpose. He had a part of the 
city wall pulled down to furnish a site for a mon- 
umental edifice. This edifice was constructed 
of an enormous size and most elaborate archi- 
tecture. It was ornamented with long rows of 



260 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 323. 

Funeral honors to Hepbaestion. A stupendous project 

prows of ships, taken by Alexander in his vic- 
tories, and by statues, and columns, and sculp- 
tures, and gilded ornaments of every kind. 
There were images of sirens on the entabla- 
tures near the roof, which, by means ofa mech- 
anism concealed within, were made to sing dirg- 
es and mournful songs. The expense of this 
edifice, and of the games, shows, and spectacles 
connected with its consecration, is said by the 
historians of the day to have been a sum which, 
on calculation, is found equal to about ten mill- 
ions of dollars. 

There were, however, some limits still to Al- 
exander's extravagance and folly. There was 
a mountain in Greece, Mount Athos, which a 
certain projector said could be carved and fash- 
ioned into the form of a man — probably in a re- 
cumbent posture. There was a city on one of 
the declivities of the mountain, and a small riv- 
er, issuing from springs in the ground, came 
down on the other side. The artist who con- 
ceived of this prodigious piece of sculpture said 
that he would so shape the figure that the city 
should be in one of its hands, and the river 
should flow out from the other. 

Alexander listened to this proposal. The 
name Mount Athos recalled to his mind the 



B.C. 323.] Alexander's End. 

Alexander's depression. Magnificent plans. 

attempt of Xerxes, a former Persian king, who 
had attempted to cut a road through the rocks 
upon a part of Mount Athos. in the invasion of 
Greece. He did not succeed, but left the un- 
finished work a la^tin^r memorial both of the 
attempt and the failure. Alexander concluded 
at length that he would not attempt such a 
sculpture. "Mount Athos. '' said he. "is al- 
ready the monument of one king's folly ; I will 
not make it that of another." 

As soon as the excitement connected with 
the funeral obsequies of Hephaestion were over, 
Alexander's mind relapsed again into a state of 
gloomy melancholy. This depression, caused, as 
it was. by previous dissipation and vice, seemed 
to admit of no remedy or relief but in new ex- 
The traces, however, of his former en- 
ergy so far remained that he began to form mag- 
nificent plans for the improvement of Babylon. 
He commenced the execution of some of these 
plans. His time was spent, in short, in strange 
alternations : resolution and energy in forming 
vast plans one day. and utter abandonment to 
all the excesses of dissipation and vice the next. 
It was a mournful spectacle to see his former 
greatness of soul still straggling on, though 
more and more faintly, as it became gradually 



264 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 321. 

A prolonged carousal. Alexander's excesses. 

overborne by the resistless inroads of intemper- 
ance and sin. The scene was at length sud- 
denly terminated in the following manner : 

On one occasion, after he had spent a whole 
night in drinking and carousing, the guests, 
when the usual time arrived for separating, pro- 
posed that, instead of this, they should begin 
anew, and commence a second banquet at the 
end of the first. Alexander, half intoxicated al- 
ready, entered warmly into this proposal. They 
assembled, accordingly, in a very short time. 
There were twenty present at this new feast. 
Alexander, to show how far he was from having 
exhausted his powers of drinking, began to 
pledge each one of the company individually. 
Then he drank to them all together. There 
was a very large cup, called the bowl of Her- 
cules, which he now called for, and, after hav- 
ing filled it to the brim, he drank it off to the 
health of one of the company present, a Mace- 
donian named Proteas. This feat being receiv- 
ed by the company with great applause, he or- 
dered the great bowl to be filled again, and 
drank it off as before. 

The work was now done. His faculties and 
his strength soon failed him, and he sank down 
to the floor. They bore him away to his pal- 



B.C. 321.] Alexander's End. 265 

Alexander's last sickness. His dying words. 

ace. A violent fever intervened, which the phy- 
sicians did all in their power to allay. As soon 
as his reason returned a little, Alexander arous- 
ed himself from his lethargy, and tried to per- 
suade himself that he should recover. He began 
to issue orders in regard to the army, and to his 
ships, as if such a turning of his mind to the 
thoughts of power and empire would help bring 
him back from the brink of the grave toward 
which he had. been so obviously tending. He 
was determined, in fact, that he would not die. 

He soon found, however, notwithstanding his 
efforts to be vigorous and. resolute, that his 
strength was fast ebbing away. The vital pow- 
ers had received a fatal wound, and he soon felt 
that they could sustain themselves but little 
longer. He came to the conclusion that he 
must die. He drew his signet ring off from his 
finger ; it was a token that he felt that all was 
over. He handed the ring to one of his friends 
who stood by his bed-side. " When I am gone," 
said he, " take my body to the Temple of Ju- 
piter Amnion, and inter it there." 

The generals who were around him advanced 
to his bed-side, and one after another kissed his 
hand. Their old affection for him revived as 
they saw him about to take leave of them for- 



266 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 321. 

Alexander's death. Alexander and Washington. 

ever. They asked him to whom he wished to 
leave his empire. " To the most worthy," said 
he. He meant, doubtless, by this evasion, that 
he was too weak and exhausted to think of such 
affairs. He knew, probably, that it was use- 
less for him to attempt to control the govern- 
ment of his empire after his death. He said, in 
fact, that he foresaw that the decision of such 
questions would give rise to some strange fu- 
neral games after his decease. Soon after this 
he died. 

The palaces of Babylon were immediately 
filled with cries of mourning at the death of the 
prince, followed by bitter and interminable dis- 
putes about the succession. It had not been 
the aim of Alexander's life to establish firm and 
well-settled governments in the countries that 
he conquered, to encourage order, and peace, 
and industry among men, and to introduce sys- 
tem and regularity in human affairs, so as to 
leave the world in a better condition than he 
found it. In this respect his course of conduct 
presents a strong contrast with that of Wash- 
ington. It was Washington's aim to mature 
and perfect organizations which would move on 
prosperously of themselves, without him; and 
he was continually withdrawing his hand from 



B.C.32L] Alexander's End. 267 

Calamitous results which followed Alexander's death. 

action and control in public affairs, taking a 
higher pleasure in the independent working of 
the institutions which he had formed and pro- 
tected, than in exercising, himself, a high person- 
al power. Alexander, on the other hand, was all 
his life intent solely on enlarging and strength- 
ening his own personal power. He was all in 
all. He wished to make himself so. He never 
thought of the welfare of the countries which he 
had subjected to his sway, or did any thing to 
guard against the anarchy and civil wars which 
he knew full well would break out at once over 
all his vast dominions, as soon as his power came 
to an end. 

The result was as might have been foreseen. 
The whole vast field of his conquests became, 
for many long and weary years after Alexan- 
der's death, the prey to the most ferocious and 
protracted civil wars. Each general and gov- 
ernor seized the power which Alexander's death 
left in his hands, and endeavored to defend him- 
self in the possession of it against the others. 
Thus the devastation and misery which the 
making of these conquests brought upon Eu- 
rope and Asia were continued for many years, 
during the slow and terrible process of their re- 
turn to their original condition. 



268 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 321. 

Stormy debates. Aridaeus appointed king. 

In the exigency of the moment, however, at 
Alexander's death, the generals who were in 
his court at the time assembled forthwith, and 
made an attempt to appoint some one to take 
the immediate command. They spent a week 
in stormy debates on this subject. Alexander 
had left no legitimate heir, and he had declined, 
when on his death-bed, as we have already seen, 
to appoint a successor. Among his wives — if, 
indeed, they may be called wives — there was 
one named Roxana, who had a son not long 
after his death. This son was ultimately nam- 
ed his successor ; but, in the mean time, a cer- 
tain relative named Aridaeus was chosen by the 
generals to assume the command. The selec- 
tion of Aridaeus was a sort of compromise. He 
had no talents or capacity whatever, and was 
chosen by the rest on that very account, each 
one thinking that if such an imbecile as Aridae- 
us was nominally the king, he could himself 
manage to get possession of the real power. 
Aridaeus accepted the appointment, but he was 
never able to make himself king in any thing 
but the name. 

In the mean time, as the tidings of Alexan- 
der's death spread over the empire, it produced 
very various effects, according to the personal 



B.C.321.] Alexander's End. 269 

Effects of the news of Alexander's death. Sysigambis. 

feelings in respect to Alexander entertained by 
the various personages and powers to which the 
intelligence came. Some, who had admired his 
greatness, and the splendor of his exploits, with- 
out having themselves experienced the bitter 
fruits of them, mourned and lamented his death. 
Others, whose fortunes had been ruined, and 
whose friends and relatives had been destroyed, 
in the course, or in the sequel of his victories, 
rejoiced that he who had been such a scourge 
and curse to others, had himself sunk, at last, 
under the just judgment of Heaven. 

We should have expected that Sysigambis, 
the bereaved and widowed mother of Darius, 
would have been among those who would have 
exulted most highly at the conqueror's death; 
but history tells us that, instead of this, she 
mourned over it with a protracted and incon- 
solable grief. Alexander had been, in fact, 
though the implacable enemy of her son, a faith- 
ful and generous friend to her. He had treated 
her, at all times, with the utmost respect and 
consideration, had supplied all her wants, and 
ministered, in every way, to her comfort and 
happiness. She had gradually learned to think 
of him and to love him as a son ; he, in fact, 
alwavs called her mother : and when she learn- 



270 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 321. 

Death of Sysigambis. Rejoicings at Athens. 

ed that he was gone, she felt as if her last 
earthly protector was gone. Her life had been 
one continued scene of affliction and sorrow, and 
this last blow brought her to her end. She 
pined away, perpetually restless and distressed. 
She lost all desire for food, and refused, like 
others who are suffering great mental anguish, 
to take the sustenance which her friends and 
attendants offered and urged upon her. At 
length she died. They said she starved herself 
to death ; but it was, probably, grief and de- 
spair at being thus left, in her declining years, 
so hopelessly friendless and alone, and not hun- 
ger, that destroyed her. 

In striking contrast to this mournful scene of 
sorrow in the palace of Sysigambis, there was 
an exhibition of the most wild and tumultuous 
joy in the streets, and in all the public places 
of resort in the city of Athens, when the tidings 
of the death of the great Macedonian king ar- 
rived there. The Athenian commonwealth, as 
well as all the other states of Southern Greece, 
had submitted very reluctantly to the Macedo- 
nian supremacy. They had resisted Philip, and 
they had resisted Alexander. Their opposition 
had been at last suppressed and silenced by Al- 
exander's terrible vengeance upon Thebes, but 



B.C. 321.] Alexander's End. 271 

Demosthenes. Joy of the Athenians. Phocion. 

it never was really subdued. Demosthenes, the 
orator, who had exerted so powerful an influ- 
ence against the Macedonian kings, had been 
sent into banishment, and all outward expres- 
sions of discontent were restrained. The dis- 
content and hostility existed still, however, as 
inveterate as ever, and was ready to break out 
anew, with redoubled violence, the moment that 
the terrible energy of Alexander himself was no 
longer to be feared. ' 

When, therefore, the rumor arrived at Ath- 
ens — for at first it was a mere rumor — that Al- 
exander was dead in Babylon, the whole city 
was thrown into a state of the most tumultuous 
joy. The citizens assembled in the public pla- 
ces, and congratulated and harangued each oth- 
er with expressions of the greatest exultation. 
They were for proclaiming their independence 
and declaring war against Macedon on the spot. 
Some of the older and more sagacious of their 
counselors were, however, more composed and 
calm. They recommended a little delay, in or- 
der to see whether the news was really true. 
Phocion, in particular, who was one of the prom- 
inent statesmen of the city, endeavored to quiet 
the excitement of the people. " Do not let us 
be so precipitate," said he. " There is time 



272 Alexander the Great. [B.C.321. 

Measures of the Athenians. Triumphant return of Demosthenes. 

enough. If Alexander is really dead to-day, he 
will be dead to-morrow, and the next day, so 
that there will be time enough for us to act with 
deliberation and discretion." 

Just and true as this view of the subject was, 
there was too much of rebuke and satire in it 
to have much influence with those to whom it 
was addressed. The people were resolved on 
war. They sent commissioners into all the 
states of the Peloponnesus to organize a league, 
offensive and defensive, against Macedon. They 
recalled Demosthenes from his banishment, and 
adopted all the necessary military measures for 
establishing and maintaining their freedom. 
The consequences of all this would doubtless 
have been very serious, if the rumor of Alexan- 
der's death had proved false; but, fortunately 
for Demosthenes and the Athenians, it was soon 
abundantly confirmed. 

The return of Demosthenes to the city was 
like the triumphal entry of a conqueror. At 
the time of his recall he was at the island of 
iEgina, which is about forty miles southwest 
of Athens, in one of the gulfs of the iEgean Sea. 
They sent a public galley to receive him, and 
to bring him to the land. It was a galley of 
three banks of oars, and was fitted up in a style 



B.C. 321.] A l exander's E n d. 273 

Grand reception of Demosthenes. Preparations for the funeral. 

to do honor to a public guest. Athens is situ- 
ated some distance back from the sea, and has 
a small port, called the Piraeus, at the shore — a 
long, straight avenue leading from the port to 
the city. The galley by which Demosthenes 
was conveyed landed at the Piraeus. All the 
civil and religious authorities of the city went 
down to the port, in a grand procession, to re- 
ceive and welcome the exile on his arrival, and 
a large portion of the population followed in the 
train, to witness the spectacle, and to swell by 
their acclamations the general expression of joy. 
In the mean time, the preparations for Alex- 
ander's funeral had been going on, upon a great 
scale of magnificence and splendor. It was two 
years before they were complete. The body 
had been given, first, to be embalmed, accord- 
ing to the Egyptian and Chaldean art, and then 
had been placed in a sort of sarcophagus, in 
which it was to be conveyed to its long home. 
Alexander, it will be remembered, had given 
directions that it should be taken to the temple 
of Jupiter Ammon, in the Egyptian oasis, where 
he had been pronounced the son of a god. It 
would seem incredible that such a mind as his 
could really admit such an absurd superstition 
as the story of his divine origin, and we must 
S 



274 Alexander the Great. [B.C.319. 

Destination of Alexander's body. A funeral on a grand scale. 

therefore suppose that he gave this direction in 
order that the place of his interment might con- 
firm the idea of his superhuman nature in the 
general opinion of mankind. At all events, such 
were his orders, and the authorities who were 
left in power at Babylon after his death, pre- 
pared to execute them. 

It was a long journey. To convey a body, 
by a regular funeral procession, formed as soon 
after the death as the arrangements could be 
made, from Babylon to the eastern frontiers of 
Egypt, a distance of a thousand miles, was 
perhaps as grand a plan of interment as was 
ever formed. It has something like a parallel 
in the removal of Napoleon's body from St. Hel- 
ena to Paris, though this was not really an in- 
terment, but a transfer. Alexander's was a 
simple burial procession, going from the palace 
where he died to the proper cemetery — a march 
of a thousand miles, it is true, but all within 
his own dominions. The greatness of it result- 
ed simply from the magnitude of the scale on 
which every thing pertaining to the mighty here 
was performed, for it was nothing but a simple 
passage from the dwelling to the burial-ground, 
on his own estates, after all. 

A very large and elaborately constructed car- 






B.C. 319.] Alexander's End. 275 

The funeral car. Its construction and magnitude. 

riage was built to convey the body. The ac- 
counts of the richness and splendor of this ve- 
hicle are almost incredible. The spokes and 
naves of the wheels were overlaid with gold, 
and the extremities of the axles, where they 
appeared outside at the centers of the wheels, 
were adorned with massive golden ornaments. ■ 
The wheels and axle-trees were so large, and 
so far apart, that there was supported upon 
them a platform or floor for the carriage twelve 
feet wide and eighteen feet long. Upon this 
platform there was erected a magnificent pavil- 
ion, supported by Ionic columns, and profusely 
ornamented, both within and without, with pur- 
ple and gold. The interior constituted an apart- 
ment, more or less open at the sides, and re- 
splendent within with gems and precious stones. 
The space of twelve feet by eighteen forms a 
chamber of no inconsiderable size, and there 
was thus ample room for what was required 
within. There was a throne, raised some steps, 
and placed back upon the platform, profusely 
carved and gilded. It was empty ; but crowns, 
representing the various nations over whom Al- 
exander had reigned, were hung upon it. At 
the foot of the throne was the coffin, made, it 
is said, of solid gold, and containing, besides 



276 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 3 1 9. 

Ornaments and basso relievos. Column of mules. 

the body, a large quantity of the most costly 
spices and aromatic perfumes, which filled the 
air with their odor. The arms which Alexan- 
der wore were laid out in view, also, between 
the coffin and the throne. 

On the four sides of the carriage were basso 
relievos, that is, sculptured figures raised from 
a surface, representing Alexander himself, with 
various military concomitants. There were 
Macedonian columns, and Persian squadrons, 
and elephants of India, and troops of horse, and 
various other emblems of the departed hero's 
greatness and power. Around the pavilion, too, 
there was a fringe or net- work of golden lace, 
to the pendents of which were attached bells, 
which tolled continually, with a mournful sound, 
as the carriage moved along. A long column 
of mules, sixty-four in number, arranged in 
sets of four, drew this ponderous car. These 
mules were all selected for their great size 
and strength, and were splendidly caparisoned. 
They had collars and harnesses mounted with 
gold, and enriched with precious stones. 

Before the procession set out from Babylon, 
an army of pioneers and workmen went for- 
ward to repair the roads, strengthen the bridg- 
es, and remove the obstacles along the whole 



B.C. oi9.] Alexander's End. 277 

Crowds of spectators. The body deposited at Alexandria. 

line of route over which the train was to pass. 
At length, when all was ready, the solemn pro- 
cession began to move, and passed out through 
the gates of Babylon. No pen can describe the 
enormous throngs of spectators that assembled 
to witness its departure, and that gathered 
along the route, as it passed slowly on from 
city to city, in its long and weary way. 

Notwithstanding all this pomp and parade, 
however, the body never reached its intended 
destination. Ptolemy, the officer to whom Egypt 
fell in the division of Alexander's empire, came 
forth with a grand escort of troops to meet the 
funeral procession as it came into Egypt. He 
preferred, for some reason or other, that the 
body should be interred in the city of Alexan- 
dria. It was accordingly deposited there, and 
a great monument was erected over the spot. 
This monument is said to have remained stand- 
ing for fifteen hundred years, but all vestiges of 
it have now disappeared. The city of Alexan- 
dria itself, however, is the conqueror's real mon- 
ument ; the greatest and best, perhaps, that any 
conqueror ever left behind him. It is a monu- 
ment, too, that time will not destroy ; its position 
and character, as Alexander foresaw, by bringing 
it a continued renovation, secure its perpetuity. 



278 Alexander the Great. [B.C. 319. 

Alexander's true character. Conclusion. 

Alexander earned well the name and reputa- 
tion of the Great. He was truly great in all 
those powers and capacities which can elevate 
one man above his fellows. We can not help 
applauding the extraordinary energy of his gen- 
ius, though we condemn the selfish and cruel 
ends to which his life was devoted. He was 
simply a robber, 4)ut yet a robber on so vast a 
scale, that mankind, in contemplating his ca- 
reer, have generally lost sight of the wickedness 
of his crimes in their admiration of the enor- 
mous magnitude of the scale on which they were 
perpetrated. 



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